Inside the mind of ‘BLA’s first suicide bomber’

Tuesday’s suicide bombing at Karachi University that killed four people – including three Chinese nationals – has been gaining a lot of traction online, not just because it targeted foreigners, but also because of the fact that it was purportedly carried out by a woman.

What is even more surprising is the accomplished academic and strong family background of the suspected attacker, identified as Shari Baloch by Majeed Brigade of the outlawed terrorist group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) which claimed responsibility for the reprehensible violence.

If confirmed, this will be the first suicide attack by a woman in the protracted separatist insurgency in Balochistan.

When 30-year-old Shari, aka Baramsh, posted a cryptic good-bye message on her Twitter handle, some 10 hours before the bombing, no one really knew what she was going to do next.

Those bankrolling and stoking terrorism in the restive Balochistan province are not unknown to anyone, but the background of the female bomber in question merits some questioning. It cannot be deemed as overnight indoctrination or a sudden urge but by all possible means a well-thought-out act.

In post dated April 24, 2022, she wrote “My land has taught me two things: love and resistance.” On March 2, 2022, she retweeted a post by Jamal Baloch which reads: “Resistance is our culture, resist if you want to celebrate it.”

On December 23, 2021, she posted a victory sign with a caption reading: “I’m not a story that will stay forever. I’ll play my role and exit.” Interestingly, she shared this same post at least twice before in the same month. In a Dec 13, 2021 post, she again flashed a victory sign with a caption: “Sacrifices for a better tomorrow.....!”

On Dec 8, 2021, she shared a quote from Ursula K Le Guin, which read: “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”

Shari Baloch was a secondary school teacher in her native Kech district in Balochistan. She completed her B.Ed in 2014 and M.Ed in 2018. Shari did her Master's in zoology from the University of Balochistan and MPhil from the Allama Iqbal Open University.

She has been absent from school for the last six months. The district education officer had served a show-cause notice to her, but she didn’t respond.

Shari left behind a daughter Mahrosh and a son Meer Hassan – both the children are as old as five.

Her husband, Dr Haibatan Baloch, is a dentist and professor at Makran Medical College. Her father has served as a director in a government agency. Later, he also served as a member of the district council for three years. Shari’s brother-in-law is a lecturer.

The family is well-established, highly educated with no previous affiliation with any Baloch insurgent group. One of her uncles is an author, a former professor and human rights campaigner.

It may be difficult to know what exactly provoked her to join the Baloch insurgency, but she remained a member of the Baloch Students Organisation (BSO-Azad) during her student life.

Importantly, none of her family members is missing or subjected to enforced disappearance except a fifth cousin who was killed during a military operation in 2018 in Kech.

A review of her Twitter handle shows that she was well read as she shared quotes from revolutionaries as Ernesto Che Guevara, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and classical and modern writers, authors and poets, including Dante Alighieri, Mark Twain, Robert A. Heinlein and Paulo Coelho.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul,” she writes in one Twitter post, dated Dec 30, 2021. In a Dec 11, 2021 post, she shared a photo of a pile of books with a caption: “An interesting and wonderful target to achieve.”

The tactics to employ a woman in suicide bombings have raised some questions: Is the Baloch insurgency redefining itself? Why use females now in such attacks and not before? Were these women brainwashed or coerced?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2022.