By organizing, leading, and, in some cases, fighting, Baloch women are challenging both state power and internal patriarchal constraints.

An extraordinary transformation is underway in Balochistan, one that unsettles long-held assumptions about protest, militancy, and gender in one of South Asia’s most militarized regions. Once pushed to the margins of political life and public dissent, Baloch women have emerged as the central force of a movement that is unprecedented in scale and distinctly indigenous in character.

From long marches demanding answers about enforced disappearances to visible participation in armed resistance, Baloch women are no longer peripheral to the struggle. Increasingly, they are defining it.

This moment marks a historic rupture. For decades, resistance in Balochistan was framed as a male-dominated, tribal insurgency—rooted in geography, kinship, and armed confrontation with the state. Women appeared mainly as mourners or symbols of suffering.

Today, that frame no longer holds. Political consciousness among Baloch women has been forged through loss, repression, and the systematic failure of peaceful avenues for justice, producing a movement that is emotionally charged yet politically sophisticated.

From Protest to Resistance

The immediate catalyst has been the persistence of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and collective punishment across the province, documented over the years by Pakistani human rights groups such as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Women—mothers, daughters, and wives of the disappeared—were often the first to mobilize publicly, precisely because men had been silenced through imprisonment, intimidation, or death. Their initial actions were resolutely peaceful: sit-ins outside press clubs, hunger strikes, and arduous long marches toward the capital of Pakistan, demanding little more than acknowledgment and due process.

When these nonviolent efforts produced no accountability, a profound shift followed. Baloch women began occupying spaces once considered unthinkable: leading mass rallies, confronting security officials, and, in some cases, joining armed resistance movements.

Footage released by the Baloch Liberation Army from the Nushki district, showing coordinated attacks on military installations with women visible in frontline roles, crystallized this transformation. The imagery was striking not only for its symbolism but for what it suggested—that sustained repression had expanded the movement beyond traditional gender boundaries.

An Indigenous Movement, Not an Imported Feminism

Despite their rising visibility, many Baloch women consciously reject identification with Pakistan’s urban, mainstream feminist movement. In interviews and public forums, they describe it as detached from Baloch realities and largely silent on state violence in the province. For them, the primary oppressor is not Baloch society per se, but the state’s security architecture.

This sentiment was articulated starkly by Dr. Shalee Baloch at the Saryab Literary Festival in Quetta, where she argued that the language of gender oppression imported from metropolitan centers fails to capture life under militarization. Her remarks echoed a widely shared belief that while patriarchy exists within Baloch society, it has been overshadowed by the far more intrusive violence of the state. When a man is abducted or killed, it is often the women who bear the longest and most visible burden—economically, emotionally, and politically.

The result is a movement that occupies a distinct political space. It neither mirrors liberal Pakistani feminism nor isolates women’s rights from national oppression. Instead, women’s emancipation is articulated as inseparable from the collective struggle for Baloch political rights, resources, and dignity.

Women at the Forefront, Not Behind the Lines

Crucially, this does not mean unquestioning alignment with male leadership. Prominent activists such as Mahrang Baloch have openly challenged men within Baloch society to support women’s education and political participation.

Addressing a massive rally in Quetta at the conclusion of a long march, Mahrang framed women’s empowerment as a measure of national self-respect, insisting that land, history, and struggle belong equally to women and men.

Her message captured a critical evolution. Baloch women are no longer mobilizing behind men as moral support or symbolic figures. They are organizing alongside—and often ahead of—them, setting agendas and redefining leadership in a movement long shaped by masculine norms.

A New Phase of Conflict

The scale of recent violence underscores the depth of this transformation. Coordinated attacks across multiple locations in Balochistan, reportedly resulting in significant casualties among security forces, drew national attention when images of female attackers circulated widely. For many observers, this shattered the assumption that militancy is an exclusively male domain.

Analysts argue that this shift reflects less ideological radicalization than strategic and emotional rupture. Political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa has noted in her writings on civil-military relations that when women enter insurgent movements, it signals the exhaustion of conventional deterrents. The cost of repression has become so normalized that even the deepest social taboos no longer restrain participation.

This pattern has been years in the making. The 2022 Karachi University bombing carried out by Shari Baloch, a highly educated mother of two, marked a grim turning point. Subsequent cases involving women such as Sumaiya Qalandrani Baloch and Banuk Mahikan Baloch suggested that female participation was becoming structurally embedded rather than exceptional.

Notably, many of these women came from educated, middle-class backgrounds, reflecting a broader shift in Baloch resistance away from tribal elites toward politicized, professional constituencies—a trend discussed in regional security analyses published by outlets like Dawn and The Friday Times.

Feminist scholars have long critiqued nationalism as inherently patriarchal, yet the Baloch case complicates that narrative. Here, women are not being asked to defer their rights until after liberation. They are actively reshaping the nationalist project itself, integrating gender equality into its core. By organizing, leading, and, in some cases, fighting, Baloch women are challenging both state power and internal patriarchal constraints.

Whether this experiment will succeed remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that across Balochistan, women are no longer waiting on history. They are making it—forcefully, visibly, and at great personal cost.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view

A state that relies on disappearing its citizens, disenfranchising its minorities, and outsourcing its justice to religious mobs is a state in retreat from the modern world.

Amidst the complex landscape of South Asian geopolitics, Pakistan finds itself at a precarious crossroads where the traditional boundaries of law and statecraft are increasingly blurred by shadow policies and the instrumentalization of religious sentiment.

As of early 2026, the structural integrity of Pakistan’s social contract is under unprecedented strain. The state’s reliance on extrajudicial mechanisms to manage dissent, coupled with a legislative environment that increasingly narrows the definition of a “citizen,” has created a cycle of instability that transcends simple political friction.

To understand the current crisis, one must look at the three pillars of this systemic decay: the normalization of enforced disappearances, the institutionalization of religious repression, and the calculated weaponization of faith as a tool of political and social control.

The Shadow State and the Silence of the Disappeared

The phenomenon of enforced disappearances has evolved from a sporadic counter-insurgency tactic into a standardized instrument of state governance.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, reports from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and international monitors like Amnesty International have painted a grim picture of a “culture of impunity” that operates beyond the reach of the judiciary.

In Balochistan alone, the numbers are staggering; data from November 2025 indicated at least 106 new cases of enforced disappearances in a single month. This is not merely a regional security issue but a nationwide crisis of constitutionalism.

The human face of this crisis was most vividly captured by the Baloch Long March and the subsequent leadership of activists like Mahrang Baloch.

In late 2024, the targeting of women activists marked a disturbing escalation in the state’s crackdown. The “kill and dump” policy—a term now synonymous with the discovery of mutilated bodies of formerly disappeared persons—continues to terrorize marginalized communities.

Despite the 2024 United States Department of State Human Rights Report highlighting these “unlawful or arbitrary killings,” the domestic response has been largely performative.

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED), established to address these grievances, has been widely criticized by civil society as a “clearing house” for state narrative rather than a mechanism for justice.

Families of the missing, many of whom have spent over a decade in protest camps, find themselves trapped in a legal vacuum where the state neither acknowledges the detention nor produces the body, effectively erasing the individual from the legal record.

Institutionalized Repression: The Shrinking Space for Minorities

While the shadow state deals with political dissent, the legislative state has been busy refining the machinery of religious repression.

In Pakistan, faith is not a private matter of conscience but a public marker of legal status. For the Christian and Hindu communities, 2024 and 2025 have been years defined by a terrifying “weaponization of the womb.”

In Sindh, where over 90% of the Hindu population resides, human rights groups estimate that over 1,000 minority girls are forcibly converted and married off each year.

A harrowing case in June 2025 involved the abduction of four Hindu siblings—including a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl—from their home in Shahdadpur. Within 48 hours, forced videos were circulated online to “validate” their conversion, a tactic increasingly used to bypass legal scrutiny.

The Christian community remains similarly besieged. Following the horrific Jaranwala violence of August 2023, the subsequent years have offered little justice. As of late 2025, despite over 5,000 people being initially accused of burning 26 churches and 80 homes, convictions remain virtually non-existent.

Instead, the judicial system has seen cases like that of Shagufta Kiran, a Christian woman sentenced to death in September 2024 for allegedly sharing “blasphemous” material in a digital chat group.

This environment of selective justice ensures that while the mob remains free, the minority victim remains incarcerated or in hiding.

The Blasphemy Industrial Complex and the Weaponization of Faith

The most volatile element of this triad is the weaponization of faith through the country’s blasphemy laws. What were once intended as colonial-era protections against communal disharmony have been transformed into a “blasphemy industrial complex.”

In 2024, the HRCP estimated that over 750 people remained in prison on blasphemy charges, many of them languishing for years without trial.

However, the most dangerous development in 2025 has been the emergence of what activists call “blasphemy gangs”—organized groups that use social media to entrap individuals, particularly the youth, in fabricated religious controversies to extort money.

This weaponization has led to a total breakdown of the rule of law in instances of mob violence.

The lynching of a man in police custody in Quetta in September 2024, and the subsequent “encounter” killing of a doctor in Umerkot by police officers after he was accused of blasphemy, illustrate a terrifying trend: the state is no longer just failing to protect the accused; its agents are actively participating in the summary execution of those accused of religious offenses.

When the state itself adopts the logic of the mob, the judicial process becomes a mere formality. The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and similar groups have successfully shifted the “Overton window” of Pakistani politics, making it political suicide for any mainstream leader to suggest reform of these laws.

The consequences of this three-fold crisis are clear. A state that relies on disappearing its citizens, disenfranchising its minorities, and outsourcing its justice to religious mobs is a state in retreat from the modern world.

The analytical consensus for 2026 suggests that unless there is a fundamental shift toward civilian supremacy and a genuine commitment to pluralism, the internal contradictions of the Pakistani state will continue to manifest in cycles of violence and international isolation.

The path forward requires more than just legislative reform; it requires a dismantling of the security paradigm that views its own citizens as the primary threat to national integrity.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Pakistan’s terror networks—Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and their Al-Qaeda-linked proxies—have dramatically increased their presence in the region.

Under the present administration, Al-Qaeda appears to be resurfacing from the concealed depths of Bangladesh’s security landscape.

The political landscape of Bangladesh—already shaken by the 5 August 2024 coup and the forced exile of the nation’s most successful leader, Sheikh Hasina—has now been rocked by a far more explosive revelation.

An investigative exposé reported by The Wall Street Journal has unearthed deeply disturbing allegations: individuals identified internationally as financiers of the deadly Al-Qaeda network may have had connections with firms associated with Muhammad Yunus and his sprawling Grameen empire.

This is not a trivial accusation. Nor is it an isolated claim from a fringe outlet. A leading Bangladesh magazine has sounded the alarm with striking clarity, arguing that these links—if proven—may help explain the sudden surge of Pakistan-backed extremist activity inside Bangladesh since the coup.

At the heart of this crisis lies a single, burning question: Has Yunus’s opaque financial empire indirectly opened doors to radical networks, and if so, who enabled it, who benefited, and who now shields him from scrutiny?

A Pattern of Darkness Behind a Global Smile

For decades, Muhammad Yunus has been portrayed internationally as a saintly figure—soft-spoken, smiling, and draped in the aura of microcredit idealism because deceptive playability. But behind the poetic façade lies a network of more than 100 interlinked companies, trusts, foundations, and financial conduits that have long been criticized for their lack of transparency, dubious accounting practices, and evasive oversight structures.

These concerns were once dismissed by foreign observers as mere “political differences” between Yunus and Sheikh Hasina. But the recent revelations change everything. They raise the possibility—not yet proven, but deeply alarming—that shadowy financiers connected to global jihadist networks may have moved money through or around the Grameen ecosystem.

With billions of dollars in donor funds, foreign grants, complex inter-company loans, and off-the-books financial arrangements, the Grameen structure has always been a maze. In an era where extremist networks are known to exploit NGOs, microfinance channels, and rural financial systems to move money discreetly, such opacity is not merely a governance failure—it is a national security threat.

The Coup That Removed Oversight

These allegations emerge at a moment when Bangladesh’s institutions lie in ruins. Since the CIA and ISI-engineered regime change of August 2024, the country has had no functioning parliament, no independent judiciary, no independent anti-corruption body, and no credible financial regulator.

The unelected ruler—Muhammad Yunus himself—captured the state and dismantled every mechanism capable of investigating him.

It is precisely this vacuum of accountability that enables extremist groups to thrive. Pakistan’s terror networks—Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and their Al-Qaeda-linked proxies—have dramatically increased their presence in the region.

Is it coincidence that this rise began immediately after Yunus took control? Or is the environment of lawlessness, political chaos, and financial secrecy under Yunus providing fertile ground for jihadist infiltration?

These questions demand answers—not whispered discussions, not selective disclosures, but a full, internationally supervised audit of all Grameen entities and their financial partners.

Sheikh Hasina’s Warning Echoes Louder Than Ever

From exile in Delhi, the rightful Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued a searing statement that now seems prophetic:

“He is a cheat who has destroyed his country for his ambitions. Now he and his coterie are looting the country and running it to the ground.”

At the time, critics dismissed her words as political rhetoric. Yet today, as allegations of extremist-linked financiers swirl around Yunus’s corporate web, her warning bears the weight of grim truth.

Hasina always understood the danger of allowing unregulated, foreign-funded financial empires to operate outside state scrutiny. Yunus, meanwhile, weaponized foreign applause to evade domestic accountability—until the coup handed him unchecked power.

Why the Allegations Matter for Bangladesh’s Survival

If even a fraction of the allegations proves credible, the implications are severe:

• Bangladesh’s security architecture may have been compromised.
• Extremist financing routes may have passed through respected institutions shielded by Yunus’s global reputation.
• Pakistan’s ISI-backed networks may already be embedded within Bangladesh’s financial and political landscape.
• The coup regime may be enabling—intentionally the resurgence of jihadist forces for their safety.

A nation built on the ideals of secularism, pluralism, and the sacrifices of 1971 cannot afford such vulnerabilities. Bangladesh is not just fighting for democracy—it is fighting for its survival as a tolerant, modern state.

An International Investigation Is Needed

The time for polite hesitation is over. The time for diplomatic courtesy is over.

What Bangladesh needs—what Bangladesh demands—is an independent international investigation into:

• All Grameen-linked companies, trusts, and financial entities
• All foreign donors and partners
• Any individuals identified as Al-Qaeda or extremist financiers
• All transactions since the coup of August 2024
• Any state or non-state actors facilitating extremist expansion inside Bangladesh

Nothing less will suffice.

Bangladesh cannot rely on an unelected ruler to investigate himself. Nor can a captured state apparatus provide transparency. Only global scrutiny—led by financial intelligence units, counterterrorism experts, and international auditors—can uncover the truth.

The Darkness Must Be Confronted

Bangladesh today stands at a crossroads. The shadows around Yunus’s Grameen empire are deepening, and the allegations now touch upon the most dangerous elements of global extremism. What was once seen as a matter of “microfinance disputes” now appears to be a potential national and international security emergency.

If Yunus has nothing to hide, he should welcome an independent audit. But if he resists, the world will know what that resistance signifies.

For the sake of Bangladesh’s integrity, for the legacy of 1971, and for the protection of its people, the truth must come out—fully, fearlessly, and without compromise.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

In a striking piece titled “All Roads Lead to Pakistan,” Blackburn deploys rhyme and rhythm to weave together a litany of global terror attacks — from the 9/11 bombings in New York and the 7/7 transit attacks in London, to the 2008 Mumbai carnage and unrest in Kashmir. Each stanza ends with a refrain that echoes his central argument: “All roads, all roads lead to Pakistan.”

The poem, now circulating widely across social media platforms, takes aim at Pakistan’s role as a hub for extremist networks. Though not an unfamiliar assertion in diplomatic circles, Blackburn’s decision to express this through verse has added a layer of emotional resonance that policy reports and press briefings rarely capture.

9/11, 7/7 — the skies burned red,
The flags of terror left defenceless dead.
From cave to command, from plot to plan,
All roads, all roads lead to Pakistan.
26/11 — Mumbai bled,
Ash and flame where children fled.
22/4 — in Pahalgam’s grace,
A meadow fell — a shattered place.
From Kalashnikov to prayer and ban,
All roads, all roads lead to Pakistan.
New York weeps, and London mourns,
Bali’s beaches, Kashmir’s thorns.
From training camps to hidden hand,
The signal’s clear, the airwaves scanned —
Terror stirs where shadows span:
All roads, all roads lead to Pakistan.

A specialist in international relations and counterterrorism, Blackburn has been a frequent commentator in European think tank discussions on radicalization, cross-border extremism, and human rights in South Asia. His current role with the EBF — a group that advocates for secularism and minority rights in Bangladesh — has brought him closer to diaspora concerns about religious extremism and state complicity.

His poetic pivot comes amid growing scrutiny of Pakistan’s domestic policies and its relationships with jihadist groups. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which had previously grey-listed the country for terror financing concerns, lifted the designation in 2022 — a move that critics like Blackburn viewed as premature.

The poem’s structure is simple, almost nursery-like in its cadence, but its content is anything but gentle. References to “Kalashnikov to prayer and ban” and “terror stirs where shadows span” leave little ambiguity about Blackburn’s message: international terrorism, regardless of where it strikes, has operational links that often trace back to Islamabad’s orbit.

Whether praised for its courage or criticized for its bluntness, “All Roads Lead to Pakistan” has succeeded in sparking conversation — and perhaps that was Blackburn’s goal all along.