Claim: Gharidahh Farooqi claimed to have exposed Mahrang Baloch’s big lie and revealed that her brother Nasir Baloch is in Quetta, Balochistan and is not missing.
Fact: Mahrang Baloch did not claim that her brother Nasir Baloch was still missing in 2023 or 2024. He was reported missing in 2017 and Mahrang and other activists protested at that time.
On 4 January 2024, journalist Gharidahh Farooqi shared a post (archived) on X with a 3-second clip of a man with a caption alleging that the clip shows Mahrang Baloch’s brother Nasir Baloch and that this is proof that he is not missing. Her exact tweet was:
یہ لیجئیے، ماہرنگ بلوچ کا مہا جھوٹ بےنقاب کر دیا ہے میں نے!!!
ویڈیو اور تصویر میں نظر آنے والا شخص ماہرنگ بلوچ کا بھائی ناصر بلوچ ہے جو کوئٹہ بلوچستان میں موجود ہے۔ یہ ویڈیو آج صبح کی ہے!!! (کوئٹہ بورڈ آفس کے قریب کی)۔ اپنے اسی بھائی کے بارے میں ماہرنگ بلوچ صاحبہ پروپیگنڈہ اور جھوٹ پھیلا رہی ہیں کہ یہ مسنگ پرسن ہیں۔۔۔ جب کہ ان کا بھائی بالکل درست حالت میں ہشاش بشاش بقلم خود کوئٹہ بلوچستان میں موجود ہے اور میری اطلاعات کے مطابق وہاں ایک سرکاری نوکری کرتا ہے اور سرکار سے تنخواہ بھی لیتا ہے۔
ماہرنگ بلوچ کامہا جھوٹ بےنقاب کر دیا ہے!!!
یہ اصل کہانی ہے ایسے لوگوں کی جو مسنگ پرسن کے مسئلے کے نام پر جھوٹ بولتے ہیں اور قوم کو گمراہ کرتے ہیں۔ بھائی ناصر بلوچ خود کوئٹہ میں موجود ہے اور ماہرنگ بلوچ ان کے نام پر اسلام آباد میں مسنگ پرسن کا جھوٹا لبادہ اوڑھے بیٹھی ہیں۔ ابھی تو اور بھی بہت کچھ ہے اس جھوٹ کے متعلق جو بےنقاب کرنا ہے۔ محترمہ ماہرنگ بلوچ صاحبہ اب اپنا فرضی جھوٹا پراپگنڈہ اور دھرنا لپیٹیں اور کوئٹہ میں موجود اپنے بھائی کے نام پر قوم کو گمراہ کرنا بند کریں اور واپس بلوچستان جا کر اپنی سرکاری نوکری کریں اور سرکاری تنخواہ حاصل کریں اور مسلح دہشتگرد تنظیموں کی سپورٹ بند کریں، قوم کی خواتین، بچوں، بزرگوں،مردوں کو ایجنڈے کے نام پر گمراہ کرنا بند کریں!!
حقائق قوم کے سامنے ہیں!!!
#BalochistanisPakistan 💚 Pakistan Zindabaad 🇵🇰
[Translation: Here you go, I have exposed Mahrang Baloch’s big lie!!! The man you can see in this video and screenshot is Mahrang Baloch’s brother Nasir Baloch who is currently present in Quetta, Balochistan. This video is from this morning!!! (near Quetta Board Office) Mahrang is spreading propaganda and lies about the same brother claiming that he is a missing person… However, her brother is in perfect condition in Quetta, Balochistan and according to my information, he has a government job there and receives a government salary. Mahrang Baloch’s biggest lie has been exposed!!! This is the real story of people who use the missing persons issue to lie to the public and mislead the nation. Her brother Nasir Baloch is present in Quetta himself and Mahrang Baloch is sitting in Islamabad wearing the false cloak of missing persons in his name. There is still a lot more to be revealed about this lie. Madam Mahrang Baloch, you should wrap up your false propaganda and your sit-in and stop misleading the nation in the name of your brother who is present in Quetta and receive your government-issued salary and stop supporting militant terrorist organisations and stop misleading the women, children, and elders of this nation with propaganda!! Facts are in front of the nation!!! Pakistan Zindabad Balochistan is Pakistan.]
Fact or Fiction?
In her post, Farooqi implies that Mahrang Baloch has claimed that her brother is currently missing. However, Soch Fact Check extensively reviewed the social media accounts of Mahrang Baloch and the Baloch Yakjehti Committee on X, Instagram and Facebook and did not find any instances of Mahrang Baloch claiming that her brother is still missing. Numerous Google searches led us to conclude that there are no recent videos or social media posts by or of Mahrang Baloch,, where she claims her brother is currently missing.
Searches of the keywords “Mahrang Baloch” and “Nasir Baloch” led to multiple articles from previous years reporting on Nasir Baloch’s disappearance. A 2021 article from SAAG, written by The Guardian’s current Pakistan correspondent, Shah Meer Baloch, states, “When her brother, Nasir Baloch was picked up in December 2017, Mahrang says she realized that no one was safe. It was the turning point in her life.”
A Facebook post from 16 March 2018 shares a photograph of two women in Baloch dresses, with one of them holding a poster which says “I Lost My Father But I don’t want to lose my only Brother Nasir Baloch Please Save Him”, and the other holding a picture of a young man. The caption of the image says that one of these two women is Mahrang Baloch. However, in the Facebook image, both women have their faces covered, with only their eyes visible. When we compare both women’s eyes to recent images of Mahrang Baloch, the woman on the right appears to resemble her.
News of Nasir Baloch’s disappearance was also reported by several local news outlets in 2018. The same Facebook image was also shared in an article from 26 March 2018, published by The Baloch News, which is a first-person narration from Mahrang Baloch.
Another article from 18 March 2018, on the website Balochwarna, clearly states that Nasir Baloch, brother of Mahrang Baloch was abducted three months ago, allegedly by the Frontier Corps (FC). The article quotes Mahrang Baloch saying: “‘Our father was abducted twice, subjected to brutal torture and later killed in custody. We fear that our brother might suffer the same fate as our father.’”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that Nasir Baloch was reportedly missing in 2017 and 2018. However, Mahrang Baloch has not made any claims of her brother’s continued disappearance in recent times.
Virality
The tweet received more than 1.1 million views and more than 10,300 interactions on X (formerly Twitter).
The tweet and the video were shared verbatim on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: Mahrang Baloch did not claim that her brother Nasir Baloch was still missing in 2023 or 2024. He was reported missing in 2017 and Mahrang and other activists protested at that time.
Background image in cover photo: ABC News
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