Syed Ali Shah, Manan Mandokhail, News Desk:Â
Quetta: The provincial capital of Balochistan, Quetta, experienced significant disruptions as leaders of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) were detained during protests. The city observed a shutdown following the BYC’s call for a strike, with mobile services suspended and internet services down since Thursday.
On Friday, law enforcement agencies employed tear gas, water cannons, and blank shots to disperse BYC protesters staging a sit-in on Saryab Road near the University of Balochistan. The demonstration was organized in response to multiple arrests, including those of the group’s leaders. The BYC accused the police of using excessive force, claiming that officers opened fire on peaceful protesters, resulting in casualties and injuries.
However, Balochistan government spokesman Shahid Rind refuted these allegations, stating that the protesters resorted to stone-pelting and unprovoked violence, injuring several police officers, including a female constable. The government maintained that law enforcement acted in accordance with the law to clear a blocked national highway, while the BYC insisted that police used unnecessary force to suppress a peaceful demonstration.
In response to these events, BYC chief organizer Dr. Mahrang Baloch, who was leading the protest and had vowed to continue the sit-in, issued a call for a shutter-down strike across Balochistan, demanding justice for the victims. The BYC, sharing Mahrang’s statement in the Balochi language on social media platform X, quoted her as announcing the shutdown of the entire Balochistan against government violence. The statement also mentioned plans to stage another sit-in at Quetta’s Saryab Road with the bodies of the alleged casualties from Friday.
On Saturday, the BYC shared purported pictures of closed shops and roads in Dalbandin, Khuzdar, Washuk, and Surab districts. It also shared footage of protests in Mastung, Dera Murad Jamali, and Turbat, where demonstrators set tires on fire to block roads. Following the strike call, the BYC reported that Dr. Mahrang Baloch and other protesters were arrested earlier on Saturday from the Quetta sit-in, and the alleged bodies were seized. A senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the arrest of Dr. Mahrang Baloch along with 17 other protesters, including 10 men and seven women.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) demanded that authorities immediately cease the use of force against peaceful protesters and release those arbitrarily detained. The HRCP emphasized that the use of disproportionate and unlawful kinetic means by the government must cease immediately to pave the way for a purposeful political solution.
The Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) and the National Party (NP) condemned what they described as excessive force against peaceful demonstrators and urged the government to engage in dialogue to resolve the situation. On Thursday, relatives of missing persons, who had been demanding they be allowed to identify dead bodies brought to the Civil Hospital, managed to take away a number of corpses from the hospital morgue.
With input from agencies.
