Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a Baloch rights activist, was arrested on suspicion of terrorism on Saturday for allegedly inciting others by making “allegations against security institutions.”
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), led by Dr. Mahrang, has organized a number of sit-ins and protests over forced disappearances in Balochistan over the past few months.
On Tuesday, movement specialists at Karachi’s Jinnah Global Air terminal had banned her from getting onto a trip to New York, where she was booked to go to a Period magazine capability.
The lobbyist had said she was expected to go to the Time magazine’s celebration for being highlighted on the Time100Next list.
Guaranteeing she was come by the Bureaucratic Examination Office (FIA), Mahrang had promised to provoke the public authority’s choice to force limitations on her unfamiliar travel in courts.
On Friday, the Malir district’s Quaidabad police filed the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is available at Dawn.com, in response to the complaint of a local resident named Asad Ali Shams, who claimed that Mahrang was inciting violence in his area.
The FIR cited the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 1997’s Section 7 (penalty for terrorist acts), Pakistan’s Penal Code’s Sections 124-A (“sedition law”), 148 (“rioting, armed with deadly weapon”), 149 (“every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object”), 153-A (“promotion of enmity between groups”), 500 (“punishment for defamation”),
However, Quaidabad Station House Officer (SHO) Farasat Shah informed Dawn.com that Mahrang and her coworkers did not hold a rally or protest on Friday.
He said the complainant disliked the lobbyist as he affirmed she was inducing individuals against the state and its organizations.
The complainant was quoted in the FIR as saying, “I am 100 percent sure that Mahrang Baloch is carrying out anti-national activities in collaboration with BLA [Baloch Liberation Army] terrorists.”
The FIR claimed that Baloch was engaged with exercises completed by different assailant gatherings, naming nine such gatherings, including the BLA.
It stated, “The innocent Baloch men and women have been misled in the failed anti-state conspiracies.”
Dr Mahrang named the case “manufactured”, saying it showed “how the state has become progressively awkward” with her activism.
In a post on X, she stated, “My peaceful activism will not be deterred by such illegal, unconstitutional, and coercive tactics.” “These measures are part of a systematic campaign not only to harass me but also to divert attention from the ongoing failure of security agencies to maintain law and order, so they keep shifting blame for their failures onto others,” she added.
Adding that she would “remain determined and unafraid of these coercive actions,” Dr. Mahrang stated that the FIR aimed to jeopardize the Baloch nation’s collective struggle.
The rights activist promised, “I will fight this in a court of law.”
She had claimed that she and her female companions were harassed by law enforcement agencies on their way back from the airport on Tuesday at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club.
Mahrang stated that she was prohibited from traveling abroad without any legal reason despite having a valid US visa and an invitation from Time. She was accompanied by rights activists Wahab Baloch, vice chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Qazi Khizar, and Sammi Deen, who was also prevented from leaving the country by the FIA last month. Sammi Deen was also prevented from leaving the country.
