KARACHI: While police booked 12 workers and leaders of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) in a sedition case for organising a rally in Lyari, a large number of women activists gathered in Malir on Sunday to condemn the police action.

The 12 held persons — Sarfraz Raiz, Sajid Yar, Murad Salman, Waheed Mehmood, Ahsan Sarfraz, Amir Khaliq, Amanullah, Ihsan Hameed, Zain Husain, Ahmed Nisar, Abdul Wahab and Aftab Shaukat — were among 25 activists picked up by police when they tried to stage a rally in Lyari on Saturday.

The police said 13 of the held persons were women and they were released without any charge.

However, a case against the 12 suspects was registered at the Kalakot police station on behalf of the state through police officer Sadiq Husain.

The FIR was lodged under Sections 123 (condemnation of the creation of the state, and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty), 124-A (sedition), 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 290 (punishment for public nuisance in cases not otherwise provided for), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

It was alleged in the FIR that the BYC activists chanted slogans “against national institutions and Pakistani leadership” during a rally in Lyari.

Meanwhile, undeterred by Saturday’s police action, a large number of women took out a rally in Sharafi Goth, Malir to mobilise the people for their upcoming programme in Dalbandin.

BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch, who led the rally, said that the participants in the rally condemned the police action in Lyari.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2025