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Al Jazeera
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Pakistani mother, Indian son: Post-Kashmir attack, they can't live together
Attari-Wagah border crossing, India — It was time to say goodbye. Standing under the searing sun, Saira, wearing a black net burqa, tightly held her husband Farhan's hand, trying to stay together for a few more moments at the main border checkpoint between India and Pakistan. Named after Attari village on the Indian side and Wagah across the border, this crossing has for years served as one of the few gateways for people to travel between the neighbours. But the Attari-Wagah border is now the latest place where India and Pakistan divide their citizens, including thousands of families with some members who are Indian, and others Pakistani. Saira and Farhan had travelled overnight from New Delhi, with their nine-month-old boy Azlan tucked in his mother's lap after India ordered almost all Pakistani citizens to leave the country by Tuesday, following a deadly attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad has denied the allegation. Like thousands of other couples, Saira, from Karachi, fell in love with New Delhi's Farhan on Facebook three years ago. They were married, and Saira moved to New Delhi. But as Saira and Farhan looked at each other on Tuesday, their eyes moist, a border guard rushed them to get on with it. At the checkpoint guarded by barbed wire and barricades, their only identity is the one defined by the colours of their passports: Saira's green and Farhan's blue. 'We shall meet soon,' Farhan told Saira, as he kissed his infant son's cheeks, preparing for Saira and Azlan to step across the border. 'Insha Allah, very soon. I will pray for you both.' But then a guard stepped forward, pointing to Azlan's passport. It was blue. 'Not the baby, madam,' he told Saira, as she held her son in her left arm. Before they could fully comprehend what was happening, the couple had been separated: Saira, on her way back to Karachi; Farhan and their breastfeeding child, Azlan, to New Delhi. On April 22, armed men shot 26 civilians dead, mostly tourists, in the resort town of Pahalgam. Since then, the countries have been on edge. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack; Islamabad has rejected the charge and has called for a 'neutral investigation'. The nuclear-armed neighbours have exchanged gunfire for six days in a row along their disputed borders. India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a key water-sharing pact. Pakistan has threatened to walk out of other bilateral agreements. Both nations have trimmed diplomatic missions and, in effect, expelled most of each other's citizens. The Attari-Wagah border now stands closed for movement or trade. So far, an estimated 750 Pakistani passport holders have crossed back across the border since April 22, while about 1,000 Indians have returned from the other side. Those affected include a Pakistani woman who was visiting her mother's home after two decades, two sisters who came for a wedding in India next week but have had to go back without attending the event, and elderly Pakistani patients with deadly ailments they had hoped to have treated in India. There was also 48-year-old Haleema Begum, who travelled for two days from Odisha on the eastern coast, covering more than 2,000km (about 1,250 miles), to reach the border crossing. Haleema left her home in Karachi 25 years ago, when she married a small businessman in Odisha. Life, she said, had mostly been fine before a policeman delivered the Indian government's 'Leave India' notice. 'I was so scared. I told them that I did not just come here, I was married off in India,' she said, sitting in a taxi near the border, her cab loaded with dozens of bags. 'Is it fair of the [Indian] government to uproot my life and push me out?' Haleema lamented. After spending a quarter of a century in India, she said, the country is her home as well. Haleema was accompanied by her two sons, 22-year-old Musaib Ahmed and 16-year-old Zubair Ahmed. Her husband passed away eight years ago. The children decided that Zubair would cross over with their mother to take care of her. But both the children have blue passports, unlike their mother's green one. They pleaded, then argued, with the border guards. Nothing worked. 'She has never travelled alone, I do not know how she will do this,' Musaib said, referring to Haleema's upcoming 1,200km journey to Karachi. Once she gets to Karachi, Haleema does not have a home to go to. 'My parents died long ago,' she said, adding that her only brother lives with his family of six in two rooms. 'There are 1,000 questions in my mind,' she added, wiping her tears. 'And no answers. I just pray to God for the safety of children. We will reunite soon.' Suchitra Vijayan, the author of Midnight's Borders, a 2022 book that follows people divided by overnight borders, said the Indian subcontinent 'is marked by many, many, of these very heartbreaking stories'. Since the partition of British India, Vijayan noted, Muslim women from India or Pakistan who married men from the other country and moved there have been among the most affected. The dilemma is perpetual, she said, especially when they are forced to return. 'You're caught in a place that is no longer your home — or it's a home that you don't recognise. And exile becomes your state of life.' Over the decades, many of the families divided by India-Pakistan tensions have held on to hopes — much like Saira and Farhan — that they will be able to reunite soon, she said. Often, that is not how it actually plays out for them. 'One of the most painful things you will listen to repeatedly is that a lot of people thought that they were just leaving temporarily,' she said. Back at the Attari-Wagah border, Farhan pretended his son's feeding bottle was a plane, hoping to distract his son from the family's tragedy. 'He does not like the bottle; he knows his mother's touch,' said Farhan's sister Nooreen, as the boy grew frustrated. Nooreen and other members of the family had joined the couple and Azlan at the border. 'Two big countries and powers are fighting, and our innocent children are trapped. Damn them,' she said. 'Only a mother knows the pain of leaving behind a nine-month-old.' Then, suddenly, Farhan's eyes lit up when he heard a guard shouting out his name. Wearing a navy blue cotton T-shirt, Farhan sprinted with Azlan's blue passport in his hands. 'Finally, they had mercy on our family,' said Farhan, running hastily, with a timid smile on his face — guards, he thought, had agreed to let Azlan cross with his mother. But he returned an hour later, his eyes tearful, and his son, irritated by the heat, still in his arms. 'She fell unconscious when she was about to cross the border. Officers told me she would not stop crying [when she regained consciousness],' Farhan said, his words fumbling as he spoke of Saira. To calm her down, the Indian guards facilitated one last meeting between Saira, her husband and son. An inconsolable Farhan remarked how different life was before the order that compelled Saira to leave the country. Farhan is an electrician in the centuries-old part of the Indian capital, known as Old Delhi. Saira, who holds an undergraduate degree in arts from Karachi, and Farhan 'were a couple that could not be separated ', said Nooreen. Since Saira came to New Delhi after their wedding, Farhan said, 'My life, my world, everything changed.' Now it has changed again, in ways he had never imagined possible. As he played with Azlan in his arms, Farhan's mother, Ayesha Begum, also at the border with the family despite a fractured leg, stared at her son. 'Ye sab pyaar ke maare hai [These are all victims of love],' she said. Her big takeaway from how India-Pakistan tensions had sundered her family: 'Pataal mai pyaar kar lena, par Pakistan mai kabhi mat karna [Fall in love in hell, but never in Pakistan.]'
Al Jazeera
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘Exiled': India-Pakistan families split as border shuts over Kashmir attack
Attari-Wagah border crossing, India — It was time to say goodbye. Standing under the searing sun, Saira, wearing a black net burqa, tightly held her husband Farhan's hand, trying to stay together for a few more moments at the main border checkpoint between India and Pakistan. Named after Attari village on the Indian side and Wagah across the border, this crossing has for years served as one of the few gateways for people to travel between the neighbours. But the Attari-Wagah border is now the latest place where India and Pakistan divide their citizens, including thousands of families with some members who are Indian, and others Pakistani. Saira and Farhan had travelled overnight from New Delhi, with their nine-month-old boy Azlan tucked in his mother's lap after India ordered almost all Pakistani citizens to leave the country by Tuesday, following a deadly attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad has denied the allegation. Like thousands of other couples, Saira, from Karachi, fell in love with New Delhi's Farhan on Facebook three years ago. They were married, and Saira moved to New Delhi. But as Saira and Farhan looked at each other on Tuesday, their eyes moist, a border guard rushed them to get on with it. At the checkpoint guarded by barbed wire and barricades, their only identity is the one defined by the colours of their passports: Saira's green and Farhan's blue. 'We shall meet soon,' Farhan told Saira, as he kissed his infant son's cheeks, preparing for Saira and Azlan to step across the border. 'Insha Allah, very soon. I will pray for you both.' But then a guard stepped forward, pointing to Azlan's passport. It was blue. 'Not the baby, madam,' he told Saira, as she held her son in her left arm. Before they could fully comprehend what was happening, the couple had been separated: Saira, on her way back to Karachi; Farhan and their breastfeeding child, Azlan, to New Delhi. On April 22, armed men shot 26 civilians dead, mostly tourists, in the resort town of Pahalgam. Since then, the countries have been on edge. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack; Islamabad has rejected the charge and has called for a 'neutral investigation'. The nuclear-armed neighbours have exchanged gunfire for six days in a row along their disputed borders. India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a key water-sharing pact. Pakistan has threatened to walk out of other bilateral agreements. Both nations have trimmed diplomatic missions and, in effect, expelled most of each other's citizens. The Attari-Wagah border now stands closed for movement or trade. So far, an estimated 750 Pakistani passport holders have crossed back across the border since April 22, while about 1,000 Indians have returned from the other side. Those affected include a Pakistani woman who was visiting her mother's home after two decades, two sisters who came for a wedding in India next week but have had to go back without attending the event, and elderly Pakistani patients with deadly ailments they had hoped to have treated in India. There was also 48-year-old Haleema Begum, who travelled for two days from Odisha on the eastern coast, covering more than 2,000km (about 1,250 miles), to reach the border crossing. Haleema left her home in Karachi 25 years ago, when she married a small businessman in Odisha. Life, she said, had mostly been fine before a policeman delivered the Indian government's 'Leave India' notice. 'I was so scared. I told them that I did not just come here, I was married off in India,' she said, sitting in a taxi near the border, her cab loaded with dozens of bags. 'Is it fair of the [Indian] government to uproot my life and push me out?' Haleema lamented. After spending a quarter of a century in India, she said, the country is her home as well. Haleema was accompanied by her two sons, 22-year-old Musaib Ahmed and 16-year-old Zubair Ahmed. Her husband passed away eight years ago. The children decided that Zubair would cross over with their mother to take care of her. But both the children have blue passports, unlike their mother's green one. They pleaded, then argued, with the border guards. Nothing worked. 'She has never travelled alone, I do not know how she will do this,' Musaib said, referring to Haleema's upcoming 1,200km journey to Karachi. Once she gets to Karachi, Haleema does not have a home to go to. 'My parents died long ago,' she said, adding that her only brother lives with his family of six in two rooms. 'There are 1,000 questions in my mind,' she added, wiping her tears. 'And no answers. I just pray to God for the safety of children. We will reunite soon.' Suchitra Vijayan, the author of Midnight's Borders, a 2022 book that follows people divided by overnight borders, said the Indian subcontinent 'is marked by many, many, of these very heartbreaking stories'. Since the partition of British India, Vijayan noted, Muslim women from India or Pakistan who married men from the other country and moved there have been among the most affected. The dilemma is perpetual, she said, especially when they are forced to return. 'You're caught in a place that is no longer your home — or it's a home that you don't recognise. And exile becomes your state of life.' Over the decades, many of the families divided by India-Pakistan tensions have held on to hopes — much like Saira and Farhan — that they will be able to reunite soon, she said. Often, that is not how it actually plays out for them. 'One of the most painful things you will listen to repeatedly is that a lot of people thought that they were just leaving temporarily,' she said. Back at the Attari-Wagah border, Farhan pretended his son's feeding bottle was a plane, hoping to distract his son from the family's tragedy. 'He does not like the bottle; he knows his mother's touch,' said Farhan's sister Nooreen, as the boy grew frustrated. Nooreen and other members of the family had joined the couple and Azlan at the border. 'Two big countries and powers are fighting, and our innocent children are trapped. Damn them,' she said. 'Only a mother knows the pain of leaving behind a nine-month-old.' Then, suddenly, Farhan's eyes lit up when he heard a guard shouting out his name. Wearing a navy blue cotton T-shirt, Farhan sprinted with Azlan's blue passport in his hands. 'Finally, they had mercy on our family,' said Farhan, running hastily, with a timid smile on his face — guards, he thought, had agreed to let Azlan cross with his mother. But he returned an hour later, his eyes tearful, and his son, irritated by the heat, still in his arms. 'She fell unconscious when she was about to cross the border. Officers told me she would not stop crying [when she regained consciousness],' Farhan said, his words fumbling as he spoke of Saira. To calm her down, the Indian guards facilitated one last meeting between Saira, her husband and son. An inconsolable Farhan remarked how different life was before the order that compelled Saira to leave the country. Farhan is an electrician in the centuries-old part of the Indian capital, known as Old Delhi. Saira, who holds an undergraduate degree in arts from Karachi, and Farhan 'were a couple that could not be separated ', said Nooreen. Since Saira came to New Delhi after their wedding, Farhan said, 'My life, my world, everything changed.' Now it has changed again, in ways he had never imagined possible. As he played with Azlan in his arms, Farhan's mother, Ayesha Begum, also at the border with the family despite a fractured leg, stared at her son. 'Ye sab pyaar ke maare hai [These are all victims of love],' she said. Her big takeaway from how India-Pakistan tensions had sundered her family: 'Pataal mai pyaar kar lena, par Pakistan mai kabhi mat karna [Fall in love in hell, but never in Pakistan.]'
Indian Express
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Dilip Kumar broke up with Madhubala because she couldn't bear children, doctor told her she'd die if she tried: ‘When he found out…'
Veteran actor Mumtaz recalled a conversation that she had with the late Madhubala, about her relationship with Dilip Kumar. Madhubala worked with him on the legendary film Mughal-e-Azam, and the two were one of Hindi cinema's most iconic pairs, both on and off the screen. Her sister said in an interview once that they would've gotten married were it not for a court case that she filed against director BR Chopra; it caused a rift between the couple. However, Mumtaz said in a new interview that they broke up because she couldn't have children. Speaking to journalist Vickey Lalwani, Mumtaz recalled, 'She didn't break up with him. He broke up with her because she couldn't have children. Instead, he married Saira Banu, who is a very nice person. She took such great care of him till his dying breath. She was his fan originally. They had a huge age difference, but these things don't matter when you're in love.' She continued, 'Nobody can ever doubt that she was madly in love with him. She was madly in love with him. But Dilip saab ko aulaad chahiye thi (Dilip saab wanted a child, you see). Perhaps it was in this desperation to have a child that he married Saira. Madhubala told me herself. I would go to meet her, and she was not well at all. She would say, 'If I ever loved anyone in my life, it was Yusuf. But when he found out that I can't conceive…' She would call him Yusuf. The doctor told her that she would die in childbirth, because of her heart problem.' Mumtaz said that she doesn't blame Dilip Kumar for what he did, because every man wants a child. 'Despite being in love with her, he might have thought, 'Let me try with another woman'. It's so tragic that he didn't have a child with Saira as well,' she said, adding that Saira is a 'sweetheart'. She added, 'I feel sorry for Saira, she's a wonderful person. If they had a child, she would've been taken care of too.' For Dilip Kumar, she was an obedient daughter who treated her father's word above everything else. (Photo: Express Archives) Madhubala and Dilip Kumar were together for nearly a decade. They also worked together on the films Tarana, Amar and Sangdil. After he tied the knot with Saira Banu, they met at her insistence. 'Soon after our nikah (marriage), while we were staying in Madras, I received a message from Madhubala that she wished to see me urgently. I confided in Saira as soon as we returned to Bombay about the message. Saira at once insisted that I should meet Madhu since it must be something she was distressed about,' he recalled in his autobiography. Madhubala eventually married Kishore Kumar, but that relationship ended in tragedy as well. She died at the age of 36 in the year 1969. Dilip Kumar died at the age of 98 in 2021.
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First Post
22-04-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Guns can't silence Balochs, talks are the only way for peace
The responsibility for preventing further escalation of Baloch insurgency rests with the Pakistani state that holds both the institutional strength and constitutional mandate to pursue political solutions. Yet, instead of justice or dialogue, the state continues to lean on coercive tactics read more At the heart of Quetta, where chaos flows like a bloodstream through the city's veins, lies Sandeman Provincial Hospital (Civil Hospital) — a lifeline for many and a graveyard for hope for others. With three gates always clattering open and shut, its most heavily used entrance opens out to Jinnah Road — a street that knows the footsteps of the grieving. Step through that gate and you enter the emergency wing, but it is not the urgency of life that overwhelms you. It is what follows it. Advertisement Behind the emergency rooms, tucked away on the side where the city turns its face, stands the hospital's mortuary. A bare, pebbled stretch of land surrounds it. No benches. No shelter. Just the wind, the dust, and the sharp, unmistakable smell of death. That smell clings to the air so tightly that most who pass by instinctively clamp their hands over their mouths and noses. But not everyone. Some stay there — unmoved by the stench, untouched by the discomfort. These are not visitors. They are family. They are waiting. On the ground, they sit — fathers, mothers, brothers — waiting to see if the lifeless body behind that door belongs to someone they once loved. Some have travelled from distant towns. Others, like Saira Baloch, know the drill too well. 'The smell doesn't matter when you are looking for someone you love,' says Saira, whose two brothers, Asif and Rasheed, were forcibly disappeared over six years ago by security forces. 'You wait because someone has to recognise the body.' The staff inside the mortuary rarely come out to help them. 'Normal cases' are handled upstairs, where forms are filed and hands are shaken politely. But when it is a bullet-riddled corpse, unrecognisable, when it is a case marked by initials like CTD — Counter-Terrorism Department — then the process halts. Advertisement 'They say it's not their job. That it's a police matter,' Saira continues. 'But the police post is across the gate. When you go to them, they say they'll inform CTD. And then you just wait. That's what we do here — we wait.' Wait for someone to take responsibility. Wait for the police to return from lunch. Wait for CTD officers who may never show. 'After noon, after 5 in the evening — no one is available,' Saira says. 'It's like the dead can wait. And the living must suffer.' On March 17, 2025, it was a day like many others — dry wind, silent grief, and families waiting on the ground outside Sandeman Hospital's mortuary. But this time, the crowd was larger. There was a new wave of unease. This unease came after Pakistan's military spokesperson, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), announced that the hostage crisis aboard the Jaffar Express had ended. 'Clearance operation successful. All 33 attackers neutralised,' the statement read. Advertisement But the armed separatist group that claimed the train hijacking — the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) — released just 12 photographs of their fighters confirming only their deaths from the attack. The numbers didn't match. And in Balochistan, mismatched numbers often meant something else — someone unaccounted for, someone long disappeared, might have been among the dead. That was enough for the families to come running. 'Whenever bodies are brought to Civil Hospital, the families of missing persons rush here,' said Saeeda Ahmed, sitting under the weak shadow of a boundary wall. Her brother and nephew were both taken years ago. 'We come because sometimes… sometimes, they are among them. And it's the only way we find out.' So they came — dozens of women and men in dust-stained slippers, faces lined by the sun and sleeplessness. They weren't there for the official version of events. They were there for the unclaimed, the unnamed, the ones who had no press release written about them. Advertisement They waited again — not just for someone to identify the dead but for someone to let them. By sunset on March 17, the gates of the mortuary were still locked. The families waited all day on the gravel, the cold biting through their clothes after dusk. The staff never came. The next morning, they returned. And again, no answers. Then on March 19, chaos erupted as word spread that during the night between March 18 and 19, thirteen bodies had been buried in Quetta's Kasi Qabristan — graveyard. No identifications. No public notices. Just a burial, done quietly, without families present. And then, the video. Footage of a man speaking at the graveyard. 'They haven't even laid the bodies properly,' he said. 'Just thrown sand on top… These could be eaten by dogs.' The video swept through WhatsApp groups, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages of the Baloch missing persons' networks. And grief turned to fury. Advertisement By the afternoon of March 19, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) held a at the Quetta Press Club, speaking out against the profiling and harassment of its members. During the session, a journalist raised a pointed question to BYC organiser Mahrang Baloch — about the reports of 13 unidentified bodies being buried at Quetta's Kasi Qabristan. Her response was direct: 'Whoever they are, the families have the right to identify them,' she replied. 'And we, the BYC, stand with the families of missing persons.' That evening, grief turned to protest. Dozens of families once again gathered at the gates of Quetta's Civil Hospital — the same spot where, two days earlier, they had sat quietly on the pebbled ground outside the mortuary, waiting. But this time, they came in greater numbers. They stood outside the mortuary, not only in mourning but demanding answers. Within an hour, the police arrived. 'We were just standing there, crying, asking why we weren't informed. Why they buried them like that,' recalls Saeeda Ahmed, whose brother and nephew are both missing. Advertisement But the state's response was swift — and violent. A baton charge followed. Five protesters, including Saeeda Baloch and her sister, were arrested on the spot. The others were chased off into the dark. Sabiha Baloch, BYC leader, shared that after hearing about the arrest of Saeeda and other women activists, Bebarg Zehri — a central BYC leader — immediately called the Assistant Commissioner (AC) of Quetta, urging him to release them. But the AC response came as a threat: 'Inko chhoro, ab tum logon ke liye halat bohot kharab honge' — 'Forget about them, now things are going to get much worse for you people.' And then by the early hours of March 20, around 5 am, a joint team of CTD and police officials raided the home of . Bebarg, who has used a wheelchair since 2010, lost the use of his legs after a grenade attack during a cultural event in Khuzdar — an attack carried out by security forces. He had been a young engineering student then, attending a Baloch Culture Day programme organised by Baloch Student Organisation-Azad. Two others were killed in the explosion. Bebarg survived — but his life would never be the same. Now, fifteen years later, the same state that once maimed him had returned — not only for him but also for his brother. Hammal Zehri, a gold medallist and PhD scholar in biotechnology, had never been involved in political organising. He had built a quiet life in academia, far removed from activism. But both brothers were taken — without a warrant, without explanation. By noon, Quetta began to stir with unrest. The disappearance of Bebarg Zehri and the continued detention of Saeeda Ahmed and other Baloch women. In response, at Saryab Road on 21st March, one of the city's main southern routes. Before the protest could take its shape, it was met with . Witnesses describe a , outnumbering the demonstrators. Groups of five or six were detained almost immediately upon arrival. No slogans had been chanted, no speeches delivered, when the first rounds were fired. What unfolded next resembled a security operation more than a response to civil assembly. Video footage from the scene shows officers charging at protestors, dispersing them with batons and tear gas. The air was tense, filled with the sound of shouts, running footsteps, and the occasional sharp report of gunfire. During the police firing, three people were : thirteen-year-old Naimat, who was shot in the chest, along with Habib Ullah and Imdad. Several others were injured. In response, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee staged a on Saryab Road. Quetta, March 22, 2025 The sit-in continued through the night. At around 5 am, police launched a raid on the protest site. The bodies were taken by force, and several participants were detained. Among those arrested was Mahrang Baloch, organiser of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. Baloch is internationally recognised, having been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, named among BBC's 100 Women, and listed in TIME Magazine's 100 Emerging Leaders. For four consecutive days — March 21, 22, 23 and 24— Quetta transformed into what Sabiha Baloch, one of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee's (BYC) central leaders, called a 'war zone.' 'From head to toe, they were armed,' she said, describing how police in riot gear, armoured vehicles, and water cannons had sealed off Balochistan University and the surrounding streets. 'We were unarmed protesters, yet they treated us as militants.' On March 21, 'Whoever was stepping off a rickshaw — they were picked up,' Sabiha recalled. 'Security forces opened live fire. 'We were dragging wounded protesters into rickshaws while shells were exploding around us.' One of the wounded, she remembered, was a 22-year-old boy shot in the flank. 'His intestines were coming out, but we held him still inside the rickshaw, trying to keep him alive.' The second night — March 22 into March 23 — was worse. 'Firing continued from 7pm to 3am,' recalled Sabiha. 'FC personnel had climbed rooftops and were shooting down at protesters. Even those wearing Balochi clothes were picked up. Minors, women, passersby — no one was safe.' With the internet suspended and journalists blocked from reporting, exact casualty figures remain uncertain. But the sounds of that night — gunshots, sirens, screams — echoed through the alleys of Quetta long after the last shell fell. The government, however, paints a starkly different picture. In an official statement posted on March 22 by the Commissioner of Quetta Division, the administration alleged that the protest 'quickly turned violent as BYC protesters and their armed accomplices resorted to stone-pelting, indiscriminate firing, and attacks on law enforcement personnel.' The note further claimed that 'three individuals lost their lives due to the firing by armed elements accompanying BYC leadership.' Sabiha Baloch, a central leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, rejects the state's claims outright. 'We have footage. We know who was firing, who had the guns, who held the power,' she says. 'And it wasn't us.' She argues that the state's crackdown isn't about violence — it's about dissent. 'The truth is, the state has never tolerated any voice that speaks for Baloch rights — whether it's raised peacefully or not. From Nawab Noroz Khan and the Khan of Kalat, to Attaullah Mengal and Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo — even those within the parliamentary system were crushed. The pattern has never changed.' She lists a long line of slain Baloch intellectuals and educators: Saba Dashtiyari, Professor Razaq , Zahid, Nazeer Marri — 'none of them were militants, none held weapons. They were killed simply for speaking.' According to her, the BYC has remained peaceful from its inception. 'Not even a flower has been plucked,' she says. 'From the Baloch Raaji Muchi protest — where four were killed — to the long march to Islamabad, our commitment to non-violence has never wavered.' She points to international recognition, like Mahrang's inclusion in TIME Magazine, as proof of their peaceful resistance. 'Yet what did the state do? Confiscated her passport. Did the same to Sammi. Arrested us, dragged our people through streets.' 'Let the state bring even one shred of evidence that we — BYC — engaged in violence,' she says. 'We will face any court in the world.' The crackdown on Mahrang Baloch and the Baloch Yakjehti Committee's leadership sparked a across Balochistan. From the remote valleys of Buleda and Dasht-e-Kurmi to the urban sprawl of Karachi, Panjgur, Turbat, Kharan and across Balochistan— people poured into the streets. In villages and cities alike, every alley echoed with slogans of dissent, and every road was filled with those refusing to be silenced. Mahrang's arrest reverberated far beyond Balochistan — drawing condemnation not just in the streets but on international platforms. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, along with other UN experts, demanded Pakistan immediately release detained Baloch rights defenders and halt its crackdown on peaceful protests. In response to the UN experts' statement, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the statement as biased and unfounded. 'Any credible assessment must recognize that these elements are not mere protesters but active participants in a broader campaign of lawlessness and violence,' the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release, accusing BYC and its supporters of 'operating in collusion with terrorists' and obstructing state responses to militant threats. The statement emphasized that the government's actions were 'fully consistent with international law' and necessary to maintain public order. In response to the state's claim that the BYC is linked to militant outfits, Sammi Deen, a central leader of the BYC, rejected the allegation; 'If the state truly believes in facts, then we challenge it,' she said. 'Let any third-party, independent body investigate every stage of our struggle. If they find even a single piece of evidence that BYC has supported armed groups, we will accept the consequences.' She pointed to what she described as a long-standing tactic of the state — equating dissent with terrorism. 'Today, it's BYC. Tomorrow, it's BNP-Mengal or PTI. Even Akhtar Mengal, an elected Member of Parliament, is being branded a terrorist sympathiser.' 'This is not a democratic government. It's a mafia-run system — controlled by generals, managed by elites, and obsessed with crushing any voice that resists. They're using media propaganda to mislead the people, especially in Punjab, linking us to armed groups without proof. Sammi further exposed a broader pattern. 'Every party that challenges state operations are branded a terrorist proxy — a RAW agent, a foreign hand, a soft face of militancy,' she said. 'PTI did it to Nawaz Sharif. Now the current rulers are doing the same to us, to BNP, even to PTI itself.' 'There has never been any proof of terrorism support against us. None. These are not accusations — they are tools. Tools to justify injustice, to hide oppression, and to silence dissent. And people see through it now — even those within the system know these allegations are baseless.' According to Sabiha, 'In conflict zones across the world, states have shown rationality — they engage only with armed groups, while making space for political voices, civil society, and journalists,' she said. 'That's how they prove legitimacy, and isolate violence.' 'But in Pakistan, that rationality is absent. Here, peaceful movements like BYC are crushed, while the state reinforces the narrative that only the language of guns is understood.' 'Instead of recognising BYC as a political breakthrough after years of crisis, the state chose repression. It has done this before — in 2005, in 2010 — and it's doing it again. Today, the armed groups' message has gained legitimacy in Baloch society: that peaceful struggle is futile.' And then, with a trace of warning: 'The state has left no space for peace. If nothing else remains, only armed struggle will. That will be the state's doing. And it has already proven it.' Historical Background of BYC: The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) did not emerge from a vacuum. Its roots lie in a series of events that left deep scars across Balochistan—each one etched into public memory, each one pulling more people to the streets. In May 2020, a late-night attack by an alleged death squad on a home in Danuk, Turbat, left Malik Naaz Baloch dead and her little daughter, Bramsh, wounded. The killing triggered widespread outrage. Images of the injured child circulated online, rousing protests across Balochistan. The anger did not subside. Just three months later, in August, Hayat Baloch, a university student, was shot dead by Frontier Corps personnel while helping his parents in an orchard in Turbat. The killing was unprovoked. His execution stunned many, including those outside the province. For the Baloch, it was another reminder that civilian lives could be taken without consequence. Protests were held in different parts of Balochistan and outside against his murder. Then came the news from Canada. Karima Baloch, a prominent activist and former chair of the Baloch Students Organisation Azad, was found dead in Toronto in late 2020. The official cause was ruled as non-criminal, but many in Balochistan were unconvinced. The hashtag #StateKilledKarimaBaloch trended for days. Her martyrdom was seen as a message—that even exile did not guarantee safety and massive protests were carried out across Balochistan. In 2021, violence again struck the young. In Hoshab, Kech, two children—Allah Baksh and Sharatoon—were killed by mortar shelling allegedly fired by Frontier Corps. Their family brought the bodies to Turbat's Fida Ahmed Chowk and refused to bury them. The protest spread. When the family marched to Quetta, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee helped channel their grief into political mobilisation. Demonstrations erupted across towns and cities. In 2023, another name was added to the list: Balach Mola Baksh. Killed in what was widely condemned as a staged encounter by the Counter Terrorism Department, his body was left at the same Fida Ahmed Chowk. After his burial, the BYC organised a long march against what it called the 'Baloch genocide'. It began in Turbat, passed through Quetta, and moved onwards to Islamabad. Hundreds of families affected by enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings joined the march. Thousands lined the roads in support. Across Balochistan and Baloch-majority areas of Karachi, protests erupted with renewed force. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee has since become a central node of civilian mobilisation in the province. 'It was the state's violence that gave birth to us — to BYC,' said Sabiha Baloch. 'We rose to carry our struggle politically, peacefully. But now, after the Jaffar Express hijacking, the state is using that incident to justify a fresh wave of violence against us." As the standoff between the Pakistani state and the Baloch Yakjehti Committee intensifies, the space for peaceful dissent in Balochistan appears increasingly fraught. Supporters of BYC insist the group represents a non-violent political movement born in the shadow of decades of unrest; state officials accuse it of facilitating militant networks and undermining national security operations. With several of the group's key leaders still in detention and the international community raising concerns over due process, the coming weeks may prove critical — not only for BYC, but for the broader question of how dissent is understood, addressed, and contained in Pakistan's most restive province. The unrest in Balochistan is not new. The 2006 operation that killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, rather than ending militancy, deepened it. And if non-violent expression is stifled, what other outcomes are possible? The responsibility for preventing further escalation rests with the state. It holds both the institutional strength and constitutional mandate to pursue political solutions. Yet, instead of justice or dialogue, the state continues to lean on coercive tactics: a pattern that risks pushing an already marginalised population even further away. What Balochistan needs is not more repression but an open space for dialogue, justice, and reform. Anything less could further erode the possibility of lasting peace. The author is a Balochistan-based feature story writer and researcher and an MPhil scholar in English Literature. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
The Hindu
21-04-2025
- The Hindu
Key eyewitness in murder shot dead in Shahdara: police reveal conspiracy
The Delhi Police on Monday revealed that a 20-year-old woman who was shot dead in Shahdara's GTB Enclave on April 14 was killed because she was a 'key eyewitness' in a murder case and not over a relationship dispute as initially claimed by the accused. The woman identified as Saira was allegedly targeted due to her role as a crucial witness in a murder of Rahul that happened four months ago in north-east Delhi's Sunder Nagri, said police. The police received the information on April 14 at 10 p.m. and they found her dead upon reaching the spot. Saira was rushed to a hospital where she was declared brought dead. Police registered a case under the BNS Section 103 (murder) at the GTB Enclave police station. Scrutiny of CCTV footage and tip-offs led to the arrest of Rizwan alias Lala. The accused was attempting to mislead the police about the motive of the murder, claiming that he had killed the woman as she refused to end her relationship with another man, police said. On sustained interrogation, Rizwan confessed that Saira was a key witness in the murder of Rahul, the police added. Rahul's murder, which took place in Sunder Nagri, is allegedly linked to Krishna alias Chacha (victim's uncle) and Aman alias Firoz Khan (victim's friend). 'Fearing that Saira might turn hostile in the court under pressure, a plan was hatched to eliminate her,' the officer said. According to police, Firoz provided the weapon and ammunition, while Kishan gave Rizwan ₹15,000, as part of a promised ₹1 lakh reward. An earlier attempt to kill her had failed, the police said. The police have confirmed that all three accused, Rizwan, Firoz, and Kishan, have been arrested.
