Pakistan targets Baloch women leaders amid widening crackdown

ON 24 APRIL, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a civil-society organisation fighting for Baloch rights and against the forced disappearances of Baloch people in Pakistan, announced that its organiser, Mahrang Baloch, along with other leaders, was launching a hunger strike in prison to protest mistreatment in detention. Mahrang, a surgeon by profession and an activist, was detained on 22 March after she took part in a peaceful protest in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. She was detained under Pakistan’s Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law and further charged with terrorism, sedition and murder. After she had been in jail for a month, the courts extended her detention for another 30 days. Other BYC leaders and Baloch activists arrested by the Pakistan government include Shajee Baloch, Bebarg Zehri, Gulzadi Baloch, and Beebow Baloch. On 22 May, the Balochistan High Court dismissed constitutional petitions against the activists’ arrests and upheld their detention.  

The wave of arrests was triggered by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) attack on a passenger train in the mountains of the Bolan Pass, about 115 kilometres from Quetta. On 11 March, armed men from BLA, which is fighting for a separate Baloch state, seized the Jaffar Express running between Quetta and Peshawar, taking more than 400 passengers hostage. The militants set off explosives on the rail tracks, resulting in substantial damage and several deaths. The siege that lasted more than 30 hours came to an end when Pakistan’s military forces stormed the train and killed all 33 attackers. Twenty-one civilians and four security personnel were killed in the standoff. The incident was an embarrassment for Pakistan’s government and military, drawing mass media coverage and exposing Pakistan’s inability to guarantee security and control in Balochistan, particularly as China invests heavily in Balochistan as part of its partnership with the Pakistani state.