Mahrang Baloch, the charismatic and fearless leader of the peaceful Baloch civil resistance, has been detained by Pakistani authorities alongside 16 other activists for protesting against the ongoing enforced disappearances in the province. As a key organiser of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, an organisation that has played a significant role in galvanising grassroots mobilisations demanding state accountability, Baloch faces charges including directing terrorist activities, sedition, and rioting.

Despite triggering widespread domestic and international condemnation, the Pakistani authorities remain largely unperturbed in their authoritarian suppression of peaceful Baloch demonstrations. In light of the recent escalation in insurgent attacks within the province, the latest wave of arrests and violent repression of protests can be seen as a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the state’s own failures and shortcomings.

Although the Pakistani state has escalated its efforts to silence Baloch this time, she has been under scrutiny for some time. A surgeon by profession, she has played a pivotal role in fostering the peaceful Baloch movement within a highly perilous environment. At just 32 years old, she has witnessed firsthand the severe abuses that the Pakistani state inflicts upon the Baloch people.

In 2009, at the age of 16, her father, Abdul Ghaffar Lango, a labourer and political activist with the Balochistan National Party (BNP), was forcibly disappeared. Two years later, his mutilated body was discovered, showing signs of torture and gunshot wounds. In 2017, Baloch’s brother also forcibly disappeared. Although he was released three months later following Baloch’s vocal opposition to the authorities,........

© News18