KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court on Wedne­sday acquitted the incarcerated chief organiser of Baloch Yakjehti Comm­ittee Dr Mahrang Baloch of sedition and other charges in a case registered against her in Karachi for allegedly inciting people by levelling “allegations against security institutions”.

However, despite her acquittal in the present case, the BYC leader, who is currently detained at prison in Quetta, would remain behind bars due to pendency of multiple other cases against her.

The ATC-V observed that the complainant had lodged the FIR, but failed to produce any independent witnesses to prove his contention. While five prosecution witnesses were cited and apart from complainant, all of them were police officials who did not know about the facts of alleged incident, the court noted.

The BYC leader along with others were booked in the terrorism and sedition case at the Quaidabad police station on Oct 11, 2024.

Dr Baloch, through her counsel Mohammad Jib­ran Nasir, had filed an acquittal application und­er Section 256-K of the Criminal Procedure Code.

After hearing both sides and perusing available record, the judge allowed the application and exonerated the applicant.

In its order the trial court noted that in the statements of prosecution witnesses recorded under Section 161 of the criminal procedure code by the investigating officer (IO), they had not stated a single word about the alleged incident, indicating that they had no knowledge about it.

It also noted that at the time of visiting the place of the incident, the IO neither called any private or independent witness from locality nor made any queries from area people regarding the alleged incident.

The court order pointed out delay in filing the charge-sheet. It stated that the case was registered in October 2024 while the charge-sheet was submitted in August 2025, after a delay of 10 months without any reason being provided by IO.

As far as the involvement of the applicant in similar type cases was concerned, it was well settled law that mere pendency of cases against an accused was no ground to treat a suspect as criminal.

The defence counsel also challenged the credibility of the complainant, contending that he was allegedly involved in criminal cases.

According to the prosecution, the case was lodged on the complaint of a local businessman in Landhi, Asad Shams, against Dr Baloch and her unidentified colleagues and alleged that he had been watching the BYC leader’s “anti-state campaign” on social media “at the behest of her foreign sponsors”.

In order to spread chaos and hatred, she and her colleagues accused state agencies of killing citizens and also allegedly provided cover to terrorists who hide among protesters during her rallies and conduct reconnaissance on sensitive locations, it maintained.

The FIR was lodged under Sections 124-A (sedition), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 153-A (promoting enmity bet­ween different groups), 500 (punishment for defamation) read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

According to the court order, in view of the plethora of pending cases, “instead of allowing the complainant/prosecution to produce weak, deficient, and inadmissible proposed evidence in the trial, it is high time for the trial courts to exercise such vast power vested therewith, to save precious public time, for conducting other meaningful proceedings in some other matters pending in the courts objectively”.

“In the above circumstance, I am of the view that there is no probability of the accused being convicted of any offence, I hereby allow this application and acquit the accused Ms Mahrang Baloch, d/o Abdul Ghaffar, under Section 265-K of the CrPC,” the judge wrote in the court order. The order also noted that Dr Baloch was produced by the Quetta jail authorities through a video link. She would remain behind bars due to pendency of other cases against her after her acquittal in the present case.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2025