In Memory of Lala Lateef, “Lala the Brother” https://x.com/DrNaseemBaluch/status/1926612308026962011 Dr. Naseem Baloch On the early morning of May 24, Pakistani forces murdered my cousin and friend, a journalist, Lateef Baloch, in Mashkai, Balochistan. It was not just the killing of a journalist, it was the extinguishing of one of the most gentle, resilient, and courageous souls in our people. Affectionately known as Lala Lateef in our town, as he was loved for his humility, his kind heart, and his unwavering dedication to others. He was a man who greeted everyone with warmth, who helped without asking, who stood firm without ever raising his voice. It is no surprise that the people of Mashkai called him Lala, an elder brother, not by age, but by spirit. Lateef Baloch was a journalist who reported from the shadows, from Mashkai, where internet is a dream and phone signals barely exist. He wrote despite the silence around him, he wrote the everyday suffering of the Baloch people. His work was dangerous, and he knew it. But he never stopped. This was not the first tragedy to strike out this family. In March this year, his son was abducted and killed by the same forces along with other eight close family members. His brother, my cousin Rashid Baloch, was abducted, murdered, and his body dumped in 2011. Another younger brother, Khalid a teacher of Balochi language, was abducted too, but returned after months of torture and disappearance. Lateef himself was abducted twice in the past, yet he always came back, and always returned to his work. He never let fear break his will. Journalism for him was not a career, it was resistance. But my memories of Lala Lateef go back much further. In the early 1990s, I was just a schoolboy when I first heard the anthem of the Baloch Students Organization (BSO) and other revolutionary songs, not from radio or public gatherings, but from his tape recorder at full volume at our home. He filled our home with those songs, and unknowingly, filled me with a lifelong love for revolutionary music and politics. That was my first awakening, and it came from him. Alongside Lateef Baloch, Akhtar Nadeem, Meeya Niaz, and myself, we started the first music learning club in Mashkai. It was a small act of defiance , a cultural rebellion in a land where expression was criminalized. Through that club, we gave voice to our dreams and our defiance, and Lala Lateef was at the heart of it all. His friend Khair Jan Bahmani was our music teacher (Ustad) in that club. He was more than a family member. He was a brother, a comrade, someone who shaped my political awakening in the beginning. He was in police custody in the 1990s during clashes between the Baloch Students Organization (BSO) and some religious groups. Dr. Deen Jan and Dr. Wahid (a veterinary doctor) were also jailed in the same case alongside him. We used to bring them food from our home. In other words, he had been part of the struggle for a cause since a very young age. Today, the forces have killed him, may believe they silenced a voice. But they only deepened an echo. His legacy lives in every young journalist risking truth, in every Baloch song sung in defiance, in every whisper of resistance that refuses to die. Still Mashkai calls him Lala, the brother.