Islamabad: A closing strike agreed by the disturbing province of Baluchistan of southwest Pakistan on Saturday when clashes between protesters and security forces shook Quetta, the provincial capital, leaving at least three dead and several injured.
The riots burst after the arrest of Dr. Mahrang Baloch, the challenging face of the Balochjehti committee (Byc), an ethnic rights group, and its associates in a police raid prior to dawn in its sitting in the Quetta area in the Sariab area.
The problem began on Friday night when the Byc organized a demonstration to protest against the death of several young people from Baloch, their bodies were shown as a gloomy evidence of alleged state atrocities.
Around 5.30 in the morning, Saturday’s local time, strong armed forces assaulted the site, rounding Mahrang and dozens of others, while allegedly confiscated the bodies of the murdered. The byc condemned the raid as a “brutal assault on our rights”, accusing the state of silencing dissent with bullets. “They attack us to silence our pain,” said a Byc spokesman, claiming three deaths and more than a dozen injuries.
Baluchistan government spokesman Shahid Rind replied that the police acted to restore the order after protesters blocked the roads and officers thrown with stones, hurting several. “Live rounds were not used,” he insisted, although hospital sources confirmed gunshot wounds among the injured.
Mahrang’s arrest caused a quick response. Before being taken, she had called a strike of blinds and transport, a plea that crossed Quetta, Tobat, Gwadar and beyond. For noon, Quetta looked like a war zone: the main barricades, mobile services and the internet suspended, and a strong security presence that applies an almost cheesy. The stores remained closed and the protesters faced the police, throwing stones against a flood of tear gas.
Ocular witnesses paint a gloomy image: blood stained streets, shouts drowned by shots and a community that wobbles for the loss. Publications on the social networks of the scene show chaos while the protesters disperse under a barrage of shells.
Violence limits a week of spiral tensions. The arrest of the members of Byc, including Bebarg Baloch, had already lit the indignation, aggravated by a recent attack by the Baloch Liberation Army (Bla) against the Japhafar Express that killed many. The Government’s reprisal operation eliminated 33 Bla militants, but critics argue that it is using insurgency as a pretext to crush legitimate complaints. Baloch nationalists denounce systematic negligence (poverty, exploitation of resources and a strong military footprint), while Islamabad points out separatist violence as the root of disturbances.
Human rights defenders have condemned repression as a chilling escalation. “Killing peaceful protesters and imprisoning their leaders is not a police officer, it is tyranny,” an activist published in X.