Dr. Mahrang Baloch is a litmus test for Pakistan’s state. By sentencing her and her colleagues to life imprisonment, the state has failed not only the Baloch people but all the people of Pakistan.

Mahrang Baloch—a medical doctor by profession, a human rights activist by conviction, and one of the leading voices demanding the release and safe return of Baloch victims of enforced disappearances in Pakistan—was drawn into this struggle through personal tragedy.

Her father, Abdul Ghafar  (Langho), a Baloch nationalist activist, was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies from his native village of Mangochar in Kalat District in December 2009. For nearly two years, his family searched for him without success. On July 1, 2011, his mutilated and tortured body was recovered from a remote area between Gadani and Othal in Balochistan.

Mahrang was only eighteen years old when her father’s charred and brutally tortured body was found. That moment became the defining turning point of her life. The young woman who had dreamed of becoming a doctor transformed into one of the most courageous human rights defenders in Pakistan, dedicating herself to the cause of thousands of families whose loved ones have disappeared.

Her story is not unique. Thousands of Baloch men, women, and even children have allegedly been subjected to enforced disappearance in Pakistan. Many remain missing for months, years, and in some cases, decades.

A similar tragedy befell another young activist, Sami Deen Baloch. Her father, Dr. Deen Mohammad Baloch, was forcibly disappeared in 2009 while serving on duty as a medical doctor. More than a decade later, he remains missing, and his family still does not know his whereabouts.

There is also the heartbreaking story of little Ali Haider, whose father was abducted and later found dead after allegedly being tortured in custody. Ali’s grandfather, the veteran activist Mama Qadeer Baloch, took the child to his father’s grave and, in a moment of unimaginable grief, told him, “Do you know who killed your father? The Pakistani state killed your father.”

Mama Qadeer turned his grief into resistance.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)