Dilshad Baluch
Late one March night, a group of Baloch students were startled by a forceful knock on the door of their shared flat in Islamabad’s I-10 sector. A number of men in plain clothes entered without warning or warrants. One of them instructed the others: “Humiliate these Baloch students and torture them like this.”
The harassment in Islamabad had been escalating for months. “They come late at night, enter our flat without permission, and make those remarks right in front of us,” said one student, whose name has been withheld for security reasons. “They follow us constantly in their Vigo vehicles, the kind everyone recognizes as used by state agencies. Whether we go to university or just out for tea, they follow us the entire way.”
He described one incident where two friends were followed from a café: “As soon as they reached our flat, the Vigo came right up to the building, then turned around and left.”
These are not just rare incidents. Many Baloch students living in cities like Islamabad and across Punjab face constant harassment, racial profiling, and state-led intimidation. For them, going to university has become a continuous struggle to stay safe and continue their education.
A Targeted Minority: Repression of Baloch Students Across Pakistan
Resource-rich Balochistan is home to the Baloch people, who have endured decades of political exclusion, economic hardship, and violent crackdowns by the Pakistani state. While Balochistan is widely known for enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, far less attention is given to how this repression has extended beyond its borders into classrooms, hostels, and city streets across Pakistan.
In Punjab and Islamabad, the country’s academic and administrative centers, Baloch students face systematic targeting under the guise of national security. Accused of harboring anti-state views or links to Baloch armed organizations, they endure constant surveillance, racial profiling, public harassment, false charges, and threats of abduction.
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