Rights activist Dr Mahrang Baloch was booked in a terrorism case over allegedly inciting people by levelling “allegations against security institutions”, it emerged on Saturday.
Baloch is a leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), which has organised various sit-ins and protests in the past few months over enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
On Tuesday, immigration authorities at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport had barred her from boarding a flight to New York, where she was scheduled to attend a Time magazine function.
The activist had said she was due to attend the Time magazine’s gala for being featured on the Time100Next list.
Claiming she was stopped by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Baloch had vowed to challenge the government’s decision to impose restrictions on her foreign travel in courts.
The first information report (FIR), a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was registered by Malir district’s Quaidabad police on Friday on the complaint of a local resident named Asad Ali Shams, who claimed that Baloch was inciting violence in his area.
The FIR invoked Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 as well as sections 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 124-A (‘sedition law’), 153-A (promotion of enmity between groups), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statement conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
However, in a conversation with Dawn.com, Quaidabad Station House Officer (SHO) Farasat Shah said that Baloch and her colleagues had not taken out any rally or protest yesterday.
He said the complainant had an issue with Baloch as he alleged she was instigating the people against the state and its institutions.
“I am 100 per cent sure that Mahrang Baloch is carrying out anti-national activities in collaboration with BLA [Baloch Liberation Army] terrorists,” the FIR quoted the complainant as saying.
Meanwhile, Baloch said that the “new fabricated police case” against her showed “how the state has grown increasingly uncomfortable with my peaceful activism”.
“My peaceful activism will not be deterred by such illegal, unconstitutional and coercive tactics,” she said in a post on X.
“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, therefore they keep shifting blame for their failures onto others,” she added.
Baloch said that the FIR aimed to threaten the collective struggle of the Baloch nation, adding that she would “remain determined and unafraid of these coercive actions”.
“I will fight this in a court of law,” the rights activist vowed.
Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday, Baloch had alleged that she and her female companions were harassed by law enforcement agencies on their way back from the airport.
Accompanied by rights activists Wahab Baloch, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) vice chairperson Qazi Khizar and Sammi Deen — who was also stopped from exiting the country by the FIA last month — Baloch said that was barred from travelling abroad without any legal reason despite having a valid US visa and an invitation from Time.
