QUETTA: An alleged suicide bomber on Saturday hit a protest camp set up against the arrest of a prominent ethnic rights activist in the southwestern Balochistan province, a government spokesman said, with no casualties reported.
Parliamentarian Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal and his Balochistan National Party (Mengal) have been leading a protest since Friday against the arrest of Dr. Mahrang Baloch, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights advocates, who has long campaigned for the Baloch ethnic group.
She and other activists were arrested last week after they took part in a sit-in protest outside the University of Balochistan in the provincial capital of Quetta. They were demanding the release of other members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee rights group, whom they allege have been detained by security agencies.
Baloch and others have been charged with terrorism, sedition and murder after the demonstration ended in the death of three protesters, according to police documents. The Pakistan army and government have in the past variously referred to Baloch and her BYC as ‘terrorist proxies’ who are allied with militant separatist groups like the Balochistan Liberation army. The group denies the charge and says it leads peaceful protests for the rights of the Baloch.
“An alleged suicide blast has taken place near the Mastung Luk Pass,” the Balochistan government spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the attack took place near the site of the BNP protest. “The participants, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, and all the political leadership of the BNP are safe.”
No group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mengal, the BNP chief, posted on ‘X’ that he was safe, calling the attack a “failed attempt to make our protest unsuccessful.”
“We have decided not to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr unless the government releases our daughters,” Mengal said as he addressed protesters during the early hours of Saturday.
Last year, Baloch was barred from traveling to the United States to attend a TIME magazine awards gala after being named on the 2024 TIME100 Next list of “rising leaders.”
She began her activist career at the age of 16 in 2009 when her father went missing in an alleged “enforced disappearance.” His body was found two years later. Her BYC says it campaigns against such extrajudicial killings, abductions and other rights abuses against the ethnic Baloch people. The state denies official complicity.
Protests and advocacy among the Baloch are often led by women, who say their male counterparts have suffered the worst in a decades-long state crackdown.
Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces and foreign nationals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
Police actions against Baloch activists have intensified after Baloch separatists earlier this month launched a dramatic train siege that officials said ended in around 60 deaths, half of whom were separatists behind the assault.
More than a dozen United Nations experts demanded this week that Pakistan immediately release detained Baloch rights defenders and halt its crackdown on peaceful protests.
