Karachi: In Balochistan, the situation is volatile. On July 28, authorities and military forces opened fire on a peaceful public gathering led by Dr Mahrang Baloch of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC). From Mastung to Turbat and Khuzdar to Quetta, every city is under the control of security forces.
However, Gwadar is a sealed city – people do not know what is happening there.
Some videos emerged showing security forces opening fire and apparently arresting human rights activists Sammi Deen Baloch, Sibagatullah Shah, Sabeha Baloch and countless protesters.
Reports indicate that the remains of protesters who were killed have not been handed over to their families, as security forces have seized them.
In the face of a curfew-like situation, Mahrang emerged and addressed people who had gathered in Gwadar on July 28. It was a courageous act by her and the entire BYC leadership to hold a jalsa on that day as promised.
“Gwadar belongs to the Baloch. No one has the right to stop us from entering the city,” Mahrang said in her speech.
At the jalsa or ‘Baloch National Gathering’ – which sparked sit-ins across Balochistan and in Karachi – she demanded that the government release all protesters and allow the Baloch to enter Gwadar.
But instead of sending a team to Gwadar to hold talks with protesters, the provincial government and security forces reacted violently, causing innumerable injuries. They also reportedly arrested the BYC’s leadership.
A video has emerged in which a man named Waleed is seen claiming that Pakistani government agencies sent him to shoot the BYC’s leadership and that he was carrying a pistol and a walkie-talkie. A photo also shows the two items purportedly recovered from him after he was captured by those at the jalsa.
The Wire has reported on the threats against Mahrang and the BYC’s leadership.
The situation remains very critical in many areas of Balochistan, including Gwadar. The country’s leadership in Islamabad remains silent on human rights violations in Gwadar.
As of Tuesday (July 30) evening, Sabeha Baloch had been released. Deen and Shah’s whereabouts are unknown.
Provincial government denies arresting Sammi Deen, BYC leadership
Sammi Deen Baloch is a prominent human rights activist who has been fighting for the release of her abducted father, Dr Deen Mohammad Baloch, for over a decade. This year, she won the ‘Front Line Defenders Award’ from the European Union for Human Rights Defenders. She joined the jalsa and was in Gwadar when security forces launched a massive crackdown on the sit-in there.
Sammi Deen Baloch. Photo: Social media.
She and the BYC leadership were injured and reportedly arrested.
Meanwhile, authorities in the province have denied arresting BYC leaders and others. Imran Baloch, an advocate, said that the Gwadar deputy commissioner initially accepted they had arrested them but later refused to acknowledge this.
Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator, reacted to Sammi Deen’s reported arrest by stating that her father was abducted by intelligence agencies. He said Sammi began her struggle to retrieve her father when she was very young and noted that now, as a popular young leader of Baloch nationalists, had been abducted for participating in a peaceful protest.
Aamna Baloch, a prominent activist, responded to the provincial government’s denial of arresting Sammi Deen and the BYC’s leadership by recalling a similar incident from Karachi. According to her, the police denied arresting boys from the city’s Lyari area who were collecting donations for the Baloch National Gathering despite their donation box being discovered inside the police station, which she said clearly indicated what the cops had done.
“We know the government has arrested them,” Aamna said, referring to Sammi Deen and others.
Gwadar gathering a ‘revolution’
Mir Mohammad Talpur, a well-known columnist, told The Wire: “Bullets, military operations and violence by the Pakistani state are not new, nor are we [the Baloch] afraid of them. We are fighting for our land and will not allow outsiders to steal our natural resources. Gwadar belongs only to the Baloch. Those who believe that Gwadar belongs to them [the Pakistani state] or to China are mistaken.”
Talpur also said that the Baloch National Gathering was not just a jalsa but a “revolution”, adding that the Baloch would never forget the way the government violently treated them.
When asked of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government’s role in the province, Talpur said the PPP had never been kind to Balochistan. He recalled that in the 1970s, former President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto dissolved Balochistan’s provincial government and launched a military operation in the province.
He also said that in 2008, when the PPP formed a government in Balochistan and at the federal level, the “kill-and-dump policy” was unleashed against the Baloch and that death squads were fully financed, promoted and given free rein.
Talpur clarified that while he did not mean that other governments were kind to Balochistan, he believed the PPP had been consistently against the Baloch. “This time, they have brought the Balochs’ biggest enemy, [Sarfaraz Bugti], as chief minister of the province,” he said.
Khattak stated that violence had come to define the relationship between the Pakistani state and the Baloch people, noting that several military operations have taken place in the province. He said that the current military operation, which began in 2006, was still ongoing.
He added that enforced disappearances, especially targeting Baloch youth, represented another form of war against the Baloch by the state.
Talpur criticised the media’s role in Pakistan, saying they never speak of Sammi, Sabeha or Mahrang. He said the media keeps promoting the state’s narrative and supporting its actions and that it is more concerned about its own interests rather than those of oppressed people.
Aamna, emotional and weeping, said that if she was in Gwadar, she would have kissed Mahrang’s head. She spoke of how younger Baloch people had grown and were now fighting for their people.
“Mahrang has [received] death threats and we know this state is unkind and capable of violent actions. But look, Mahrang is out and with her people,” she said.
“The brutal state repression has reached generational proportions. It will certainly deepen anger and alienation among the Baloch,” said Khattak.
