QUETTA: Detained activist Mahrang Baloch, one of the leading campaigners for Baloch rights, has launched a hunger strike along with other detainees, her sister told AFP on Friday.
Mahrang Baloch, 32, was arrested last month on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder.
Mahrang’s hunger strike “is aimed at denouncing the misconduct of the police and the failure of the justice system to protect... prisoners,” her younger sister, Nadia Baloch, said.
Nadia said the hunger strike was launched on Thursday after the attempted “abduction” of one of the Baloch detainees.
Mahrang’s organisation, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), said the inmate was beaten by security officials and taken from the prison to an unknown location.
A security official said the detainee was moved to another prison and denied any mistreatment.
BYC said four other detained Baloch activists have joined the hunger strike.
“All of them are peaceful political workers, imprisoned for raising their voices... Their only ‘crime’ is organising peacefully in an environment saturated with state terror and violence,” the group said.
Activists say in the crackdown against militancy in the region authorities have harassed and carried out extrajudicial killings of Baloch civilians.
Authorities reject the “baseless allegations”.
A dozen UN experts called on Pakistan in March to immediately release Baloch rights defenders, including Mahrang, and to end the repression of their peaceful protests.
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