On March 21st loud cries and screams were heard in front of the Balochistan University in Quetta. Videos surfacing on the social media depicted the police pushing and dragging the protesters in police vans, firing blank shots and using tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters. The capital city of Balochistan, Pakistan’s south-western province __plagued in a decades long insurgency, is accustomed to protests against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The protest was led by Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a key human rights activists, under the banner of Baloch Yakjehti Committee( BYC), a women-led organization advocating for Balochistan’s human rights violations and missing persons.
She wasn’t alone. Surrounding her were mothers, sister and brothers__ who had lost their loved ones to the state’s enforced disappearances. Many of them had held up the photos of their missing fathers, brothers and sons, reflecting years of anguish and unanswered questions. Some had even been the part of a long March ,900 miles, from Turbat to Islamabad, crossing towns and villages , receiving batton charge and fake FIRs to get a single glimpse of their missing loved ones.
The Spark that ignited the Protest
The protest was triggered by the enforced disappearances of Beebagr Baloch, one of BYC’s central leaders and his brother Dr. Hammal Baloch on March 20th. Beebagr Baloch, a wheel-chair bound activists and one of the key activists of Baloch Yakjehti Committee has been an outspoken critic of human rights violations in Balochistan, mobilising youths and organising protests despite his physical disability.
On March 21st, 2025, the BYC staged a sit-in protest in front of the Balochistan University, Quetta to protest against the enforced disappearances of the two brothers. This protest resulted in a violent confrontation between the protesters and the police, resulting in casualties among protesters and injuries to some policemen. The police used brute force on the protesters, bringing opprobrium.
The reports coming in from the Baloch Yakjehti Committee are very disturbing, with 3 of its members dead and 13 injured. One of the videos circulating on social media showed a minor, Naimat Buledi, a resident of district Sohbatpur, who was allegedly shot in the chest. The boy worked in a pizza shop in Sariab, Quetta. However, the authorities from the Balochistan government reported that 10 police officers sustained injuries during the clashes.
In response to this deadly incident, Dr. Mahrang Baloch, BYC key leader, called for a province-wide shutter-down strike to protest against state brutalities and planned for another sit-in protest on Quetta’s Sariab Road with the death bodies. Later, On 22nd March, a pre-dawn raid let to the arrest of Dr. Mahrang and several other activists while also seizing the bodies of those killed.
Despite the arrest of Dr. Mahrang , the province saw a complete shutter-down strike, with shops closed, tyres brunt, roads and major highways closed for traffic and the region came to a standstill, disconnected from the rest of the world.
Compounding the situation, internet services, including 3G and 4G networks, were suspended in Quetta since March 20, 2025, due to security concerns. This communication blackout significantly disrupted daily life and hindered the free flow of information, making it challenging to report on-ground developments.
The recent crackdown is a testimony of previous state-sponsored suppressions of peaceful protests. The province saw mass demonstrations in Gwadar __the port city of Balochistan__ against Chinese-led development projects in 2022, facing a similar fate of the state using violent force to silence the dissent.
Mahrang Baloch has been charged of murder, terrorism and sedition. A First Information Report (FIR) filed against her states that she led a mob targeting the police force while videos on the social media showcased the protesters to be peaceful and unarmed.
Given that she has been detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance, 1960, specifically section 3, which allows the state to detain a person to maintain public order, she has been sentenced for a month jail, a step thought by many to weaken Baloch Yakjehti Committee and its sympathisers.
Kurtuluş Baştimar, a Kurdish lawyer and human rights defender, declared “Today is a historical day. After communicating with the supporters and lawyers of Mahrang Baloch. I was entrusted to take the case of the brave voice of freedom to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.” She asserted on X that the Pakistani government arrested her arbitrarily and that constituted a violation of international law. “I will officially announce the day of submission of the petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention under International Law.”
No One feels Safe
Additionally, the enforced disappearance of a prominent Psychiatrist and the Vice Principal of Bolan Medical College, Quetta ,his son and brother-in-law in another night raid in the Doctor Colony of Quetta also saw great condemnations from various figures. The Young Doctors Association ( YDA) also announced to boycott all OPDs in all the teaching hospitals of the province amidst the arrest of Dr. Ilyas Baloch and Dr. Mahrang.
Later, on March 25th, Sammi Baloch, the recipient of the Front Line Defenders Asia Award, 2024 and a central leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, was arrested in Karachi protesting against the enforced disappearances of Dr. Mahrang and Beebagr Baloch in front of the Karachi Press Club after the Karachi Police charged on the protesters.
A decades long Crisis
Dr. Mahrang Baloch,30, a professional doctor turned activist has been advocating for human rights violations and enforced disappearance in Balochistan since a very young age when her father’s , Ghaffar Langove’s mutilated bodied was found in Gaddani, a coastal town in Balochistan in 2011. Sami Deen Baloch, 25, also a BYC activist, has been protesting on roads for her missing father, Dr. Deen Muhammad, talking on TV shows and holding sit-ins for years.
Balochistan, dominated by the Baloch people, is a region divided by the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran remains unknown to the world besides being gifted with resources and its geostrategic significance. According to Karlos Zurutuza, a Germany-based journalist, the world has more information about the planet Mars, its sandstorms and ice found on its surface than Balochistan.
Pakistan’s Balochistan__ the country’s largest province has seen a decade’s long running insurgency. Being rich in mineral resources such as natural gas, gold and silver, the local Baloch people feel exploited by Islamabad. The government has always dealt the insurgency with an iron fist instead through dialogue. The result is a cycle of target killings, enforced disappearances and insurgents carrying out large scale attacks on military installations and the Chinese workers under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor ( CPEC).
The issue of missing persons isn’t new to Balochistan. Over the years, the province has seen documented cases of students, journalists, doctors, poets, human rights and political activists being taken by security forces to be missing for years or in some unfortunate cases return as bullet-riddled, tortured and mutilated bodies. The Pakistani government has continuously denied the case of the missing persons, attributing them to be militants or anti-state. However, human rights Organizations, such as the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, account that since 2009, 1,500 of the disappeared have turned up dead, with 7,000 still missing.
The government-run Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIOED) denies, claiming that there are 300 active cases of missing persons since December, 2023. On the other hand, in February, 2024, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, Pakistan’s the then Interim Prime minister, told the BBC that there were only 50 people missing in Balochistan.
National and international Attention
Despite national and international pressure, the government has argued that the protesters were creating law and order situation and tagged them to be “politically motivated. The Chief Minister of Balochistan, Sarfaraz Bugti, has constantly reiterated__ “strong actions would be taken against those disturbing peace in Balochistan.” While the country’s senior analysts believed that the state’s harsh steps would radicalize more youths, pushing them towards insurgency.
With Dr. Mahrang being nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize__which she confirmed on her X handle__ the crackdown against her and the BYC not only found limelight on social media but had garnered international attention.
The arrest of Dr Mahrang has been condemned by Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) Chief, Akhtar Mengal, stating that she was arrested for speaking the truth and advocating peacefully for her people’s rights and after Sammi Baloch’s, he has announced for a long March from the town of Wadh, Khuzdar to Quetta on 28th March.
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has expressed deep concern over the detention of Mrs. Baloch. In her statement, she said Mahrang Baloch is the voice of millions of children and women in vulnerable regions of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Michael Kugelman, a South Asian affairs expert at the Wilson Centre in Washington termed the arrest Misguided and warned, it could impact Pakistan’s global image.
While U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor expressed concern regarding the police harassment faced by protesters. Organizations like The Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, in a joint statement, called on the Pakistani government to uphold the rights of the peaceful protesters while dispensing justice for the victims of the enforced disappearances. In Washington, some senators called for a review of the U.S Military Aid to Pakistan, citing state repression and human rights violations in Balochistan.
China, the key investor in Pakistan, has largely been silent. However, the government in Beijing has been always conscious about the security situation in Balochistan, pressing Islamabad to maintain security situations, as Chinese engineers and projects have seen large scale attacks by the Baloch insurgents over the past years, in a recent incident where a suicide bomber ramped an explosive-laden vehicle on a Chinese convoy en route from the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.
The Way Ahead
The government in Islamabad is in critical juncture. The use of brute force against peaceful demonstrators would give birth to insurgents’ narratives who think that peaceful demonstration is futile. If Islamabad doesn’t change course, the situation in Balochistan would further alienated, making future reconciliation efforts even more futile. If human rights defenders continue to be targeted, Balochistan would see more strikes, mass protests and unrest. The International community must intervene to hold Islamabad accountable for the human rights violations in Balochistan and the use of brute force to silence the dissent.
Lastly, the ball is in Islamabad’s court __will it solve the Balochistan issue through dialogue or a path of authoritarian approach and repression? Only time will tell.
Zeeshan Nasir is a Turbat-based writer and currently pursuing his MBBS Degree from the Makran Medical college, Turbat.He tweets on X at @zeeshannasir972 . His work has been published in Dailg Dawn, The Diplomat and others.
