The Baloch insurgency that began in 1948 has time and again seen its rise and a literal fall. There have been a series of talks, surrenders, killings, and operations in and on Balochistan.

Advertisment

But 75 years on, what is causing the insurgency to survive and, albeit, turn far more deadlier?

The four rounds of insurgency in the past have been led by Baloch Sardar or Tribe heads, as the tribes were heading the insurgency and armed resistance.

Following the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in August 2006, that saw a renewed life in the armed resistance and the insurgency at its peak. It spread from Dera Bugti, Kohlu all the way to the coastal towns and belt of the Makran coastal highway.

Advertisment

After the PPP government came into power following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007, Pakistan opted for the policy of kill and dump in Balochistan, which further fuelled the insurgency till 2011.

In 2012, the insurgency came to an almost dead end after a series of deadly operations and surrenders to the Pakistani state by different factions of the armed militants.

The Baloch insurgents lost face in the local audience after having targeted local politicians from the area, which made people turn against them, leading to an almost elimination of the insurgency from 2013 to 2018.

Advertisment

Also Read | West Asia crisis: Hope new Lebanon president will help achieve 'stability,' says Israel

Sporadic, low-intensity attacks, however, did continue—from 2013 till 2018 there was a considerable lull in the armed Baloch resistance, but what the Pakistani security forces ignored and called “breaking the back of the armed resistance”, turned out to be their worst nightmare.

The modus operandi of the insurgency changed, there was a new head of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and a relatively new organization the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF).

The BLA and BLF continue to be listed as terrorist organisations, and as far as the BLA is concerned, it is not just Pakistan that calls it a terrorist organisation, but even the United States listed BLA as a Global Foreign Terrorist Organization in July 2019.
Both organisations are spearheaded by middle-class, educated men. While BLA has had historical roots, BLF was founded in 2008. Bashir Zaib who was a student activist, now heads the BLA, Dr Allah Nazar, who is a doctor, heads the armed resistance group BLF. Their aim? Recruit the educated, students, and political class.

The Baloch resistance was arming itself during the lull period, in not just physical arms but with the ideology it had. The defensive and guerilla warfare changed into an offensive mode of insurgency. It was in 2018 when the suicide bombing unit of the BLA, Majeed Brigade struck big to make its presence felt.

Among the first of the attacks was the suicide attack on Chinese engineers in August 2018 in Dalbandin, which was carried out by Rehan Baluch, the son of Aslam Achu, who was the head of the Majeed Brigade. Achu was later killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s Kandahar in December 2018, and he was replaced by Bashir Zaib.

This bombing signalled a fresh wave of violence, one that would not be conventional and be a headache to be dealt with, to quote an official, “How do you stop a person who comes with the intention to die?”

Also Read | SPADEX satellites moving closer in prep for docking process: ISRO

The killing of Hayat Baloch, a student of Karachi University, at the hands of the FC, a paramilitary force, in August 2020 in his hometown of Turbat, gave a renewed life to the middleclass-led armed Baloch resistance.

Pakistan, on its part, blames interference from foreign elements and their funding to the group while turning a blind eye to a major problem that is homegrown.

The systematic repression of the Baloch youth is prompting the insurgency and armed resistance to survive.

Let's quote you some examples.

Sha’ari Baloch a female suicide bomber of the 2022 Chinese Confucious Institute Bombing in Karachi, wasn’t an ordinary person—she was an MPhil in Physics from the Karachi University. Sha’ari being the first female suicide bomber gave a new life to the Majeed Brigade, where the Baloch youth looked up to her and sought inspiration from her.

Another such case is of Shahdad Mumtaz Baloch, a Baloch youth who had gone “missing” from his hometown in 2015. His family remained silent, and months later their son came back to them. But what happened to him in the end might hold lessons for others. On 1 May, 2020, Shahdad Mumtaz was killed in a shootout with the Pakistani military. To the surprise of many who knew him, an armed separatist group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed him as one of its members. Educated and socially active, Shahdad Mumtaz taught at a prestigious grammar school in his hometown of Turbat in the far south of the province and worked as a regional coordinator for the HRCP, mostly reporting on missing persons—a major issue in the region. In 2015, he joined the ranks of the missing but was among those lucky ones who, in the words of a local analyst, “manage to convince their captors that they have been reformed and that their nationalist activism was a mistake”. After his release in 2016, Shahdad Mumtaz joined Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) for a Masters programme.

But this doesn’t stop at Sha’ari Baloch or Shahdad Baloch, there have been others as well.

Also Read | Potentially deadly synthetic opioids disguised as medicines: US agency warns of risk from online pharmacies

Lets look at the case of Aftab Baloch Jattak, who was the Chairman of the Baloch Students Council demanding rights for the students of Balochistan from the Pakistani state only to later pick up arms and join the BLA in 2019. Aftab did his masters at Islamabad’s Quaid e Azam University and, after passing out, was part of the BLA squad that attacked the Pakistan military camp in Bolan in May 2021, where he was killed in exchange of gunfire.

Mahal Baloch is another example of the educated youth of Balochistan going against the Pakistani state for her belief in the ideology. Mahal was the suicide bomber who struck at the FC camp in Balochistan’s Bela in August 2024. She was an LLB student from the University of Turbat who was born and raised in Surbandar, 25 kilometres from Gwadar.

And off late, the latest symbol of resistance and being worshiped as an ideal is the case of Shah Fahad Baloch, the suicide bomber from BLA’s elite Majeed Brigade who targeted Chinese nationals near Karachi airport in October 2024. Shah Fahad Baloch, hailing from Naushki in Balochistan, was also a student of law from the Lasbela University.

Pakistan has carried out proxy operations in Afghanistan and strikes on insurgent training camps in Iran, and it blames India for funding the Baloch insurgency. But the problem remains inward; it is the sense of deprivation and alienation among the Baloch youth. For decades, the elections in Balochistan has been flawed and marred by controversies, often electing those who are not the true representatives and are largely, if not completely, unknown to the people, which leads to protest by ethnic Baloch nationalists. All this has resulted in a lack of trust on the system among the youth. And when the youth lose trust, they go for other means—in this case, pick up arms against the Pakistani state.