Rights activist Mahrang Baloch on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against the Balochistan High Court’s (BHC) May 22 order that dismissed constitutional petitions challenging her detention and that of two other Baloch leaders, more than two months after they were held under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPO).
Mahrang, the chief of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), along with other activists of the group was arrested on March 22 for allegedly “attacking” Quetta Civil Hospital and “inciting people to violence”, a day after their members faced a police crackdown in Quetta while protesting against alleged enforced disappearances. The BYC is a Baloch advocacy group working against enforced disappearances since 2018.
Mahrang’s sister had challenged the detention in the BHC but the court had asked the petitioner to approach the home department for her release. The sister had subsequently filed constitutional petitions in the high court challenging the detentions but those were dismissed.
Mahrang’s petition, filed in the Supreme Court (SC) through senior counsel Faisal Siddiqi and lawyer Jibran Nasir, pleaded for the right to appeal against the May 22 order and requested the apex court to set aside the BHC judgment and allow the constitutional petitions.
Mahrang argued the BHC judgment was “without jurisdiction, illegal, and liable to be set aside”.
She said that the continued detention was “unjustified and disproportionate” as her name was already placed in the Fourth Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, subjecting her to stringent restrictions on movement, liberty, and livelihood and enabling the government to maintain oversight through measures including good behaviour bonds, movement restrictions, reporting requirements and asset inquiries.
“It is submitted that further preventive detention under the MPO, in addition to these restrictions, amounts to excessive and punitive control which fails the legal tests of legality, necessity, and proportionality,” the petition said, adding that she was entitled to be released from preventive custody so she may lawfully defend herself in pending cases and seek appropriate legal remedies.
The petitioner also argued that the impugned decision by the Balochistan government was “vitiated by a manifest misapplication of law and a complete failure to adhere to statutory procedure”.
She requested to be allowed to urge further grounds in addition to the above at the hearing of this appeal.
A day earlier, her sister urged the apex court to set aside the BHC’s April 15 order that rejected the plea against Mahrang’s detention under the MPO.
The petition alleged that her “repeated unlawful detention and labelling her as a sympathiser of militants” was a planned effort by the respondents to stop her from raising her voice for missing persons. It apprised the court that her father and brother were “subjected to enforced disappearance in 2011 and 2017.”
The federal government through the interior ministry, home and tribal affairs department of Balochistan, prosecutor general, inspector general of police, Federal Investigation Agency director general, Quetta deputy commissioner and the state have been named as respondents in the petition.
Along with the main appeal, a separate application was also filed before the Supreme Court, seeking suspension of the BHC order during the pendency of the present case.