Quetta erupts in violence as activist Mahrang Baloch arrested

ISLAMABAD: A shutters-down strike gripped Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province on Saturday as clashes between protesters and security forces rocked Quetta, the provincial capital, leaving at least three dead and several injured.

The unrest erupted after the arrest of Dr Mahrang Baloch, the defiant face of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), an ethnic rights group, and her associates in a pre-dawn police raid on their sit-in in Quetta’s Sariab area.

The trouble began Friday night when the BYC staged a demonstration to protest against the deaths of several Baloch youths, their bodies displayed as grim evidence of alleged state atrocities.

At around 5.30 am local time on Saturday, heavily armed forces stormed the site, rounding up Mahrang and scores of others, while allegedly confiscating the bodies of the slain. The BYC condemned the raid as a “brutal assault on our rights”, accusing the state of silencing dissent with bullets. “They attack us to silence our grief,” a BYC spokesperson said, claiming three fatalities and over a dozen injuries.

Balochistan govt spokesperson Shahid Rind countered that police acted to restore order after protesters blocked roads and pelted officers with stones, injuring several. “No live rounds were used,” he insisted, though hospital sources confirmed gunshot wounds among the wounded.

Mahrang’s arrest triggered a swift response. Before being taken, she had called a shutters-down and transport strike, a plea heeded across Quetta, Turbat, Gwadar, and beyond. By midday, Quetta resembled a war zone — major roads barricaded, mobile and internet services suspended, and a heavy security presence enforcing a near-curfew. Shops remained shut and protesters clashed with police, hurling stones against a barrage of tear gas.

Eyewitnesses paint a grim picture: bloodstained streets, screams drowned by gunfire, and a community reeling from loss. Social media posts from the scene show chaos as protesters scatter under a barrage of shells.

The violence caps a week of spiralling tensions. The arrest of BYC members, including Bebarg Baloch, had already ignited outrage, compounded by a recent Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) attack on the Jaffar Express that killed many. The govt’s retaliatory operation eliminated 33 BLA militants, but critics argue it is using the insurgency as a pretext to crush legitimate grievances. Baloch nationalists decry systematic neglect — poverty, resource exploitation and a heavy military footprint — while Islamabad points to separatist violence as the root of unrest.

Human rights advocates have condemned the crackdown as a chilling escalation. “Killing peaceful protesters and jailing their leaders isn’t law enforcement – it’s tyranny,” one activist posted on X.