QUETTA: Banned militant organisations have been using women and children as human shie­lds for their violent activities and they later dissociate themselves from these people, Balochistan government officials said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a joint press conference on Wed­nesday, Balochistan CTD DIG Aitzaz Goraya and CM’s spokesman Babar Khan Yousafzai said that Mahal Baloch, who was arrested on Feb 19 along with a suicide jacket from Quetta’s Satellite Town, admitted her association with the outlawed BLF.

They presented a video message of Mahal Baloch in which she confessed her link with the BLF and said her husband was also working for the banned organisation.

“My husband was kil­led along with his brother in 2016 and I shifted to Karachi with my in-laws where people belonging to the banned organisation contacted and brainwashed [me], and after that, I joined the organisation and later shifted to Quetta,” she said.

Ms Baloch said she was not tortured during interrogation and after her arrest, the organisation disowned her. She claimed that she was persuaded by Aziz Yousaf, a close relative of the BLF chief, to work for the organisation.

DIG Atizaz said that during the investigation, she said the suicide jacket was provided to her by a person named Sharbat Khan.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2023