Claim: An image shows Dr Mahrang Baloch standing in front of the poster of BLA insurgent Rafiq Bizenjo, a suicide bomber who attacked the Quetta Railway Station in November 2024.
Fact: The image is altered.
On 22 March, X user posted a photo of Dr Mahrang Baloch, purportedly showing her standing in front of a poster of an insurgent belonging to the proscribed group BLA. The caption states: “BREAKING: BLA spokesperson Mahrang Baloch has been arrested and will face swift justice in Pakistani courts for supporting terrorism and inciting unrest in Balochistan on behalf of foreign powers.”
This user also shared this image on X here. The portrait behind Dr Baloch is of Rafiq Bizenjo, a suicide bomber from the militant separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army, who attacked the Quetta Railway Station in the southwestern province on 9 November 2024, killing 26 people.
Through this photo, the user is suggesting that Baloch, a human rights activist who has vocally advocated against the issue of enforced disappearances and missing persons in Balochistan, is actually a supporter of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). The claim likely echoes the unfounded narrative which asserts that those who go missing are actually people who join the BLA, a proscribed militant group. There have been instances of individuals who voluntarily disappeared and joined the BLA. However, fact-finding missions by human rights groups such as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Human Rights Watch found that the majority of missing persons are those forcibly disappeared by the security forces who are not granted due process for their rights.
Normally, families of the forcibly disappeared are seen carrying posters as evidence to show what happened to their loved ones: a name alongside the photo and the date they went missing.
These posters are common at protest camps advocating for missing persons’ return. Baloch is known to appear frequently at such camps as part of her campaign demanding the release of those who have been forcibly disappeared. The image claiming to show Mahrang Baloch standing in front of a BLA poster is likely one of such camps she visited.
Mahrang Baloch’s arrest and unrest in Balochistan
On 22 March, the police arrested Dr Mahrang Baloch, a human rights activist protesting against the detention of members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a rights group led by Baloch.
The day prior, the police had teargassed and shot unarmed demonstrators protesting against the detention of “BYC leader Bebarg Baloch, his brother, a senior doctor of the Bolan Medical College, his son, and son-in-law”. The BYC claimed that the police attack had killed at least three people and injured at least a dozen. Government officials claimed that 10 police personnel were also injured. On the other hand, a statement released by the Quetta Commissioner’s Office claimed that three individuals were killed by armed “elements” with the BYC.
Authorities suspended cellular network services, with the shutdown lasting for at least four days since the start of the protests.
The protests began last week when the families of missing persons arrived at the Civil Hospital in Quetta to identify the dead bodies brought there, hoping to find their loved ones, who were victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, among them. Once they were denied entry, the families staged a demonstration, demanding to be allowed into the hospital to identify the bodies.
Government officials say the bodies were those of the insurgents killed in an operation carried out against the BLA after they hijacked a passenger train on 11 March.
On the other hand, BYC members said during a press conference that authorities were falsely portraying the bodies of the killed missing persons as those of insurgents. According to Dawn, official sources said BYC protesters had forcefully entered Civil Hospital, and took at least five unidentified bodies of the dead with them, three of which were retrieved by the authorities.
However, it’s not clear whether the dead bodies were of the insurgents or the missing persons, who are reportedly killed extrajudicially, and their bodies, which bear signs of torture, are dumped on roads or in remote areas, as most reports suggest.
The government intensified its crackdown on BYC by arresting its member, Beberg Baloch, detaining him and his brother, which sparked protests, subsequently leading to Mahrang Baloch’s illegal detention.
Authorities also arrested rights activist and BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch, who protested against the arrests of Dr Mahrang Baloch and the movement’s members in Karachi on Monday.
The Balochistan High Court declined the petition filed by Baloch’s sister for her release on 15 April, whereas Sammi was released on 1 April.
“More than 38 hours since Mahrang Baloch’s unlawful detention, she is still being denied access to her lawyers and family. There are also worrying reports of continued arbitrary arrests and detentions across Balochistan province. Pakistani authorities must immediately release Mahrang Baloch and all others being detained for exercising their right to peaceful protest, and refrain from implicating Baloch activists in frivolous cases to unlawfully prolong their detention,” Amnesty International said in a post on X.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched the image and found it has been altered to make it appear that the poster behind Dr Mahrang Baloch depicts BLA insurgent Rafiq Bizenjo.
Interestingly, the altered image in the claim was also circulating in November 2024. An initial search led us to two photographs of Baloch in the same setting, shared on X by Naeema Zehri, a journalist from Balochistan, in November 2024.“This is the original,” she wrote in response to an X user who suspected the photo of Baloch had been altered.
The first photo shows Dr Baloch standing with her eyes closed, while the second image is a close-up that corresponds with the image in the claim. Both of these photos clearly reveal that the poster behind her does not feature the BLA insurgent that we see in the image in the claim.They show an entirely different individual, as shown below:
Soch Fact Check then contacted Zehri, who provided original images of Mahrang Baloch from January 13, 2024. Comparing various images with the claim’s photo clearly indicates that the latter has been edited to depict an entirely different person behind Baloch:
Furthermore, Soch Fact Check analysed the images shared by Zehri and the one in the claim. The poster in the claim appears to overlap and slightly cut into the poster of “Asif Baloch” on the right, a sign that the image of the BLA insurgent was edited and inserted behind Mahrang Baloch. The red rectangle in the image from the claim also conceals any visible signs of editing, and since this is the only version being shared by those spreading the claim, it seems an attempt to obfuscate signs of editing.
However, that’s not the case with the images shared by Zehri, where posters behind Mahrang appear naturally and are consistent with other posters of missing persons.
Then, a reverse-image search yielded an article by Geo Fact Check from November 2024. This fact-check, titled “Quetta suicide bomber was not previously a missing person”, debunked similar claims targeting Baloch with the same image. At the time, claims had emerged that the BLA insurgent who carried out a suicide bombing in Quetta in November 2024 was supposedly a missing person, Rafiq Oman, a teacher and an actual victim of enforced disappearances by the security forces, who has been missing since 2014.
However, the fact-check found that Oman and Bizenjo were two different people; the former was actually a missing person, whereas Rafiq Bizenjo was a BLA suicide bomber.
Furthermore, Soch Fact Check found the same image of Baloch shared by users on Instagram and X in January 2024. This version also does not show Rafiq Bizenjo in the background. When we compared it to the one in the claim, we noted several features which suggest that the image in the claim is evidently altered.
Soch Fact Check thus concludes that the image in the claim is altered. The original image does not show a poster of BLA militant Rafiq Bizenjo in the background.
Virality
The altered image was shared on X here garnering 51,600 views and 1,400 likes. It also appeared here.
The same user shared this image on X previously in November 2024 here (archive), and it also appeared on X around the same time here (archive).
It appeared on Facebook in November 2024 here (archive).
Conclusion: An image showing Dr Mahrang Baloch standing in front of the poster of BLA insurgent Rafiq Bizenjo is altered.
Background image in cover photo: The Guardian
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com