A young activist leading a "revolution" against the Pakistani Army is Mahrang Baloch
A doctor turned human rights activist, Dr. Mahrang Baloch, is putting the Pakistani Army through its paces a few days before the country’s pivotal general elections. In order to draw attention to the problem of torture carried out by state forces and missing people in Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces, she is organizing a month-long sit-in protest. The leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee spoke at a gathering at Shahwani Stadium in Quetta on Saturday, describing the ongoing movement against the enforced disappearance and operations as “a watershed moment” and stating that a “revolution” was brewing in the troubled province, Dawn reported.
Speaking to an audience of thousands that included women, political activists, and students from various Balochistani districts, she declared, “Today’s participants have demonstrated that they are standing with their mothers and sisters in their fight for their loved ones’ recovery.” “In Islamabad, the policemen pulled the veil (chadar) from the heads of our women and also tortured them,” Baloch claimed. People in Balochistan have been raising their issues against the ‘atrocities and injustices’ committed by the state for the last 75 years, she said.
She also added that those in power were “deaf and dumb”. “They have weapons, but we dare to continue our struggle against the atrocities and injustices,” Baloch said.
Balochistan, rich in resources, is the least populated province of Pakistan. The region has been destroyed by a long-running separatist insurgency which has seen brutal repression by Pakistani security forces and enforced disappearances, the PTI report added.
Since the year 2011, 2,708 people have gone missing in Balochistan, according to Pakistan’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances.
Hence through these protests, Dr Mahrang Baloch is trying to draw attention to the atrocities against the Baloch population.
Who is Dr Mahrang Baloch?
The human rights activist is from the Balochistan province of Pakistan. She has battled against the region’s authorities’ extrajudicial executions and illegally enforced disappearances over the years. She was born into a Muslim Baloch family and works as a doctor. She has five sisters and one brother. Abdul Gaffar Baloch, her father, was a laborer and a political activist on the left.
Dr. Baloch’s tragedy led to her activism against the powerful. In 2009, as her father was on his way to a hospital in Karachi, he was allegedly forcibly abducted by Pakistani authorities. She was only sixteen at the time. 2011 saw the discovery of her father’s body with visible signs of torture. In addition, her brother was kidnapped in 2017. He had been in custody by the Pakistani authorities for over three months.
Dr. Baloch has been leading the Baloch resistance movement for the past few years.
