The most dangerous lie in Balochistan today is that every armed agenda can be cleaned up by calling it resistance. The Balochistan Liberation Army has learned the grammar of modern propaganda: kill first, upload later, then wait for sympathetic networks to blur the line between suspect and victim, militant and martyr, coercion and conviction. The Balochistan Liberation Front and allied separatist outfits work the same terrain, where violence on the ground is followed by absolution online.
The facts speak for themselves. BLA has been proscribed by Pakistan since 2006, was designated by the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity in 2019, and was listed by Washington as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2025 along with its Majeed Brigade alias. It has claimed attacks on Chinese nationals, security forces, railway passengers, labourers and public infrastructure. In April 2022, Shari Baloch killed three Chinese teachers and a Pakistani driver outside Karachi University’s Confucius Institute, marking a dangerous turn in the use of educated women as suicide bombers.
The women’s question must be confronted without romantic fog, wherein the BLA’s propaganda machinery presents women as ideological trophies. The purpose is both tactical and symbolic: women attract attention, complicate security checks, and give the insurgency a softer face for foreign audiences. This is where the Baloch Yakjehti Committee’s conduct demands scrutiny. The organisation presents itself as a rights platform. Yet, state dossiers and official briefings point out that BYC-linked campaigns have repeatedly blurred the line between peaceful advocacy and narrative cover for BLA and BLF. The Tayyab Baloch case is central to that argument. So are official claims around Wadood Satakzai, Karim Jan, Rafiq Bizenjo, Sohail Kurd and others who were allegedly projected as missing persons despite militant links.
The placement of BYC-linked activists on the Fourth Schedule should therefore be treated as a counterterrorism measure, not automatically dismissed as persecution. The state has a lawful right to monitor suspected militant facilitators. Of course, it goes without saying that it is also responsible for producing evidence and ensuring the suspect’s right to due process.
Still, what kind of “rights” politics stays loud on detentions and quiet on murdered teachers, slain labourers, bombed trains, abducted passengers, attacked polio workers, and children pushed towards militancy? Have the “leaders” forgotten the Jaffar Express hijacking, which killed 31 people, including soldiers, railway staff and passengers?
Pakistan should be unapologetic in exposing any platform that launders BLA and BLF violence through missing-person campaigns, selective grief and foreign amplification. The state must also be disciplined enough to prove every allegation, because propaganda thrives where prosecution looks careless.
Balochistan does not need militias selling death. It needs a Pakistan strong enough to defeat terror and fair enough to deny terror its excuses. *
