Mahrang Baloch: A Baloch Version of Aung San Suu Kyi

Dr. Mahrang Baloch is a litmus test for Pakistan’s state. By sentencing her and her colleagues to life imprisonment, the state has failed not only the Baloch people but all the people of Pakistan.

Mahrang Baloch—a medical doctor by profession, a human rights activist by conviction, and one of the leading voices demanding the release and safe return of Baloch victims of enforced disappearances in Pakistan—was drawn into this struggle through personal tragedy.

Her father, Abdul Ghafar  (Langho), a Baloch nationalist activist, was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies from his native village of Mangochar in Kalat District in December 2009. For nearly two years, his family searched for him without success. On July 1, 2011, his mutilated and tortured body was recovered from a remote area between Gadani and Othal in Balochistan.

Mahrang was only eighteen years old when her father’s charred and brutally tortured body was found. That moment became the defining turning point of her life. The young woman who had dreamed of becoming a doctor transformed into one of the most courageous human rights defenders in Pakistan, dedicating herself to the cause of thousands of families whose loved ones have disappeared.

Her story is not unique. Thousands of Baloch men, women, and even children have allegedly been subjected to enforced disappearance in Pakistan. Many remain missing for months, years, and in some cases, decades.

A similar tragedy befell another young activist, Sami Deen Baloch. Her father, Dr. Deen Mohammad Baloch, was forcibly disappeared in 2009 while serving on duty as a medical doctor. More than a decade later, he remains missing, and his family still does not know his whereabouts.

There is also the heartbreaking story of little Ali Haider, whose father was abducted and later found dead after allegedly being tortured in custody. Ali’s grandfather, the veteran activist Mama Qadeer Baloch, took the child to his father’s grave and, in a moment of unimaginable grief, told him, “Do you know who killed your father? The Pakistani state killed your father.”

Mama Qadeer turned his grief into resistance. He founded the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) to campaign against enforced disappearances of Baloch political activists. Under its banner, the organization held sit-ins outside press clubs across Pakistan and organized some of the longest protest marches in the country’s history.

One of the most remarkable of these was the nearly 1,000-mile march from Quetta to Karachi, undertaken by Mama Qadeer alongside families of the disappeared—including little Ali Haider. Later, the movement expanded with another historic march from Quetta to Islamabad, drawing national and international attention to the issue.

Joining these protests were mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, daughters, sons, and grandparents carrying framed photographs of their missing loved ones. They walked hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles, endured scorching summers and freezing winters, spent weeks, months, and even years at protest camps, and faced police crackdowns, arrests, and imprisonment. Yet they refused to abandon their demand for truth and justice.

Among the prominent faces of this movement were Mahrang Baloch, Sami Deen Baloch, Mama Qadeer Baloch, and countless other relatives of the disappeared, whose peaceful struggle has become one of the longest-running human rights campaigns in Pakistan.

Farzana Majeed, whose brother Zakir Majeed Baloch has been missing since 2009, became the vice president of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons after the death of its veteran leader, Mama Qadeer Baloch. Mama Qadeer passed away on December 20, 2025, at the age of 85. Farzana Majeed fled Pakistan and now lives in self-imposed exile in the United States.

It was, however, Mahrang Baloch’s extraordinary charisma that began drawing unprecedented crowds. Her marches on foot, stretching hundreds of miles alongside the families—particularly women—of the Baloch missing persons, and her fiery speeches challenging Pakistan’s military establishment, where many believe real political power resides, attracted the attention of international media and human rights organizations around the world.

She founded the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), or Baloch Solidarity Committee, which has emerged—if the phrase is not overused—as a force to be reckoned with in restive Balochistan. The organization advocates a distinctly nonviolent political movement. In the eyes of many observers, Mahrang Baloch and the BYC present an alternative to armed Baloch separatist organizations such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), which have been engaged in an armed insurgency against the Pakistani state and military for years—a conflict that often remains underreported outside the mineral-rich province.

Unlike the separatist armed groups that wage guerrilla warfare in Balochistan’s mountains and urban centers, the BYC maintains that its struggle is peaceful and operates within the framework of Pakistan’s Constitution. Pakistan’s authorities, however, have often portrayed Mahrang Baloch and the BYC as being linked to militant organizations, an allegation that Mahrang, the BYC, and many independent observers reject.

Within Pakistan, Mahrang has been branded by her critics as a “traitor,” a “terrorist,” a “terrorist sympathizer,” and even an “Indian” or “Israeli agent.” Abroad, however, her profile has risen sharply. She has appeared on the cover of Timemagazine, she and her colleague Sammi Deen Baloch have received international human rights awards, and she has recently been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Mahrang Baloch and several of her colleagues, including Sibghatullah Shah and Beebo Baloch, have remained imprisoned for about a year on charges including murder and terrorism. Their legal proceedings have drawn criticism from rights advocates. The trial has been described by some observers as a “faceless trial” because much of it reportedly took place inside the prison and through video links. According to her lawyers and supporters, prosecution witnesses were not properly identified, the defense was denied the opportunity to cross-examine them, and the statements of the accused under Section 342 of Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code were not properly recorded.

Mahrang has now been sentenced to life imprisonment, which in Pakistan generally amounts to approximately twenty-five years. “Had there been an independent judiciary in Pakistan, she would never have been convicted,” Pakistan’s prominent lawyer Ali Ahmed Kurd is reported to have said. Kurd was one of the leading figures of Pakistan’s Lawyers’ Movement against military ruler General Pervez Musharraf and has long spoken publicly about the Baloch conflict, dating back to the 1973 insurgency.

“Mahrang Baloch is persona non grata in the eyes of both the Pakistani state and the Baloch militant outfits because of her nonviolent politics and her growing public appeal,” said a Baloch political exile living in Europe, who requested anonymity because he fears reprisals against relatives still living in Pakistan.

To me, Mahrang Baloch, with her remarkable ability to inspire crowds and her uncompromising yet nonviolent politics, represents the Baloch equivalent of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi during the years when she symbolized peaceful resistance against military rule.

The life sentences handed down to Dr. Mahrang Baloch and her colleagues have triggered sharp reactions and widespread condemnation. In Pakistan, however, even small gatherings organized to protest the verdict have been met with heavy crackdowns by the police and intelligence agencies.

In Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, Mahrang Baloch’s family members were prevented from holding a press conference at the Press Club. Her sister and other leaders and activists of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and others , including Zubair Shah, were arrested.

In Karachi, police stormed the home of BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch, ransacked the house, seized documents and personal belongings, and arrested her in handcuffs. The raid took place on the seventeenth anniversary of the enforced disappearance of her father.

Outside Pakistan, however, the verdict has sparked protests and expressions of solidarity from politicians, human rights activists, journalists, and members of the Pakistani and Baloch diaspora. One such demonstration was held in Washington, D.C.

“The government in Pakistan does not let you ask questions. They are afraid of questions. It wasn’t like this even six years ago,” journalist Iram Abbasi in an interview.