Baloch activists, parliamentarians and rights workers assert that Mahil Baloch is being paraded on TV and derided in a bid to rebuke her community, especially women activists, who have been quite vocal about the human rights situation prevailing in Balochistan, the media reported.
The 27-year-old single mother of two, who belongs to the Gumazi area of Kech district, was arrested by the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) of Balochistan in March this year, Dawn reported.
Authorities accused her of being a member of the banned Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) and alleged that she was planning a suicide attack, Dawn reported.
But unusually for such a case, the under-custody Mahil has recently been interviewed by a number of media outlets. After the interviews aired, Baloch activists took to social media, terming it a "media trial".
The recent wave of Baloch women being detained has been going on since Karachi University bombing when Shari Baloch, a 31-year-old mother of two, blew herself up, killing four people, including three Chinese citizens.
In a report recently released by its fact-finding mission, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan observed "a palpable sense of anger among ordinary citizens, many of whom went so far as to refer to Balochistan as a 'colony' of the state during meetings with the organisation".
Shakeela Naveed Dehwar, an MPA from BNP-M, has been outspoken inside and outside the Balochistan Assembly on issues confronting women in her province.
"She is a poor lady, who has been deliberately brought on media to give a bad name to women activism in the province because women are at the forefront in Balochistan in the protests to recover the missing persons," she said, Dawn reported.
Also read | Balochistan rocked by Pashtun and Baloch protests
However, Babar Yousafzai, spokesperson for the Balochistan chief minister, told Dawn: "After gathering intelligence, our law enforcers arrested Mahil Baloch because she was a potential suicide bomber, who wanted to carry out a suicide attack in Quetta. She has confessed to be so not only in the video but also before a court of law."
Nasrullah Baloch, chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, told Dawn: "We have always demanded that Baloch people should not be implicated in bogus cases. They must not be subjected to any illegality until or unless they are found guilty in a court of law."
He suggested that there should be a parliamentary committee, comprising all political parties, to go to Mahil Baloch to hear her out and ascertain whether her statements are being taken under duress or not, Dawn reported.
