Karachi suicide bombing: How an educated woman turned to terrorism

At 14:07 on the 26th of April, a minivan carrying teachers of Chinese nationality began to turn towards the gates of Karachi University’s Confucius Institute. Nobody on board could have known that the seemingly normal, traditionally dressed pedestrian on their right was in fact a suicide bomber, who detonated as the van drew alongside. The bomb tore apart the minivan, killing three Chinese teachers and the Pakistani driver and injuring at least 4 others.

Most shockingly, the traditionally dressed pedestrian was in fact a woman – the first-ever female suicide bomber for the terrorist group Balochistan Liberation Army.

CCTV footage from the day before shows Shari Baloch attempting, but failing to detonate against the minivan carrying the Chinese teachers.

The victims

Three Chinese teachers and their Pakistani driver were killed and four others were injured.

The deceased:

Prof. Huang Guipin, one of the Chinese teachers, was the founder-director of Karachi University’s Confucius Institute. He returned to Karachi after some time and was looking forwards to moving the institute forwards.

Lecturer Ms. Ding Mufang from Henan was one of the Chinese teachers killed. She was very popular with her students.

Ms. Chen Sai, 26, was one of the Chinese teachers killed. She was also very popular among her students. She held a Master’s degree in Chinese Instruction from the Sichuan Normal University. She was a volunteer at the Confucius Institute.

Khalid Nawaz, the driver of the minivan who was killed in the blast. He had 5 daughters and two sons. He had worked for the Chinese teachers since 2016. The federal and Sindh governments announced a 2 million Pakistan rupee support package for his family.

Shari’s family

Shari also comes from a highly educated and respected family and except for a distant cousin that was killed by Pakistani forces in 2018 during a military operation in Kech, none of her family members are currently missing or have faced enforced disappearances – it is unclear yet if there is any family-specific involvement or motivation for her to join, but there was no personal financial deprivation issue involved.

Shari’s husband Habitan Bashir Baloch is a dentist and student of the Karachi based Institute of Public Health and demonstrator at the Makran Medical College in Kech, Balochistan. Shari and Habitan celebrated their wedding anniversary before she conducted the attack.

https://twitter.com/HabitanB/status/1519041873691791362

Habitan Bashir Baloch posted this congratulatory message, with a picture of the couple and their children on the tweet after hearing about his wife’s suicide bombing. He refers to his wife as ‘Jan’ which means life in Urdu.

It is not clear at this moment if Habitan has been detained, although some Pakistani sources seemed to believe he had been ‘apprehended’ by security forces. The families of Shari and Haibtan have so far declined to speak to the media about the attack.

Her father also had recent links to educational facilities as he had worked as a registrar for the University of Turbat. He was also part of the district ombudsman 

served as a registrar at the University of Turbat lately, remained part of the district ombudsman team for three years, and was director of the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA).

Her father spoke to Pakistani journalist Kiyya Baloch via local journalists in Balochistan:

“My daughter was a very cheerful and kind woman. The family is still in shock. It was and is beyond our comprehension that Shari could take anyone’s life. None of us were aware of her affiliation with BLA. She was a happy girl, and we don’t know what forced her to do this. Neither she had any suicidal tendencies nor radical thoughts. There is a lot of propaganda about her in the Pakistani press. Reports of her having mental problems or having differences with my family are untrue and baseless. Last we met was around three weeks ago in Karachi. Days before she committed this act, she had spoken to her siblings but didn’t mention anything like this. She looked happy.”

“We don’t know. Shari’s kids with their father are missing, and we have no contact with them. We also don’t know who planned this attack & what forced them to commit this. Both couples were political. But we didn’t know they were radicalized. I knew Shari sympathized with Baloch families affected by violence, enforced disappearances, & war. Her husband has had same views. But that is common in a closed society. I have heard Shari was a member of BSO Azad long ago. She also participated in their rallies at that time.”

“We have not received the remains of Shari. Authorities have told us that the remains of suicide attackers are usually not handed over to the families. But we have been promised we would get Shari’s remains after the Eid. The local authorities also fear Shari’s funeral could attract thousands, and she may receive a heroic welcome in Turbat. That is a reason we haven’t been given the remains yet. We still don’t know what forced her to do this, and we have told the same to local authorities. All I can say is Shari was a stable, cheerful, and caring girl. She was politically curious and cared for the Baloch nation. Whatever she did has already become part of history. We request the media avoid speculations and propaganda and refrain from publishing cooked-up stories.”

Shari also sent strange messages to some close family members and friends, asking them to “please forgive all mistakes.” They assumed she was sending them in advance of Eid.

Shari has 3 brothers and four sisters. One of her brothers is a Tehsildar – a tax officer of respectable standing that oversees a large number of junior officers – another brother is an author and the last is a doctor. One of her sisters is an English lecturer and another very interestingly is an employee of the Balochistan Levies paramilitary force.

In Shari’s extended family, other than her distant cousin that was killed by Pakistani forces, two of her cousins are doctors. One of Shari’s uncles is a former professor, an author and a human rights activist.

Baloch Siddik Azad, Shari’s great grandfather tweeted his congratulations on her terrorist attack:

“I am proud of fearless sacrifice and martyrdom of my great granddaughter Shari Baloch. Balochistan demands such sacrifices and Baloch children will continue to sacrifice their lives till complete independence of motherland. Our real goal is complete independence of Baloch land.”

– Baloch Siddik Azad

Information on Shari’s personal life and family from Kiyya Baloch

The responses

Given that foreign nationals were targeted and killed in the terrorist attack, it was very important for Pakistan’s government to respond to this in a way that demonstrated its seriousness to tackle the issue, which was at the highest level. Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, as well as associated ministers, visited the Chinese  Embassy to express and share condolences with their close partners. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif vowed to improve the security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan,

The leader of the religious party Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam Pakistan, Maulana Fazal ur Rehman visited the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad and met with Chinese Charge d’Affaires Ms Pang Chunxue to give his condolences. The religious community and the religious-political elite in Pakistan generally distance themselves from Baloch nationalist terrorism.

Baloch Liberation Army issued a statement about Shari Baloch’s suicide attack. Their media channel Hakkal Media published a poem from the group’s Commander in chief, Bashir Zeb Baloch, which was dedicated to the attacker.

There were many accounts on social media belonging to BLA supporters that posted artwork, poems and photographs of Shari Baloch. The vast majority of these accounts did not belong to BLA associated operatives, but to ordinary Baloch people – this should be a worrying sign for Pakistan.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strong condemnation of the events that led to the deaths of their nationals, which was expected. However, former editor in chief of Chinese government-linked media Global Times, Hu Xijin said he supports Chinese airstrikes against Baloch insurgents if Pakistan approves. This shows the seriousness with which China has taken this incident Pakistan should consider what the inability to protect Chinese people and investments could mean for their relationship with China.

Conclusions

Much of the clamour in the media and public about Shari Baloch’s suicide attack revolved around the sombre thought of how desperate Pakistan’s Balochistan situation must be if an educated and intelligent woman from good societal standing was willing to murder Chinese workers and leave behind her family, including her husband and young children.

Shari Baloch, despite being financially stable and “happy” according to people that knew her, was willing to give her life for the cause of the Balochistan Liberation Army. This is significant because it shows that BLA’s propaganda, which mostly revolves around the liberation of an oppressed Baloch nation, allowed them to recruit a highly unlikely perpetrator. This could indicate that the nationalist sentiment within the marginalised Baloch population of Pakistan goes far beyond personal ambitions, which should be both worrying and a sign that correction of some key issues is needed for Pakistan in Balochistan.

Balochistan is a marginalised area of Pakistan which lacks the resources and infrastructure to sustain the needs of its people. It lags far behind in key areas, such as education and healthcare and has the lowest Human Development Index of any of Pakistan’s provinces. This only fuels the negative sentiments in the province towards the Pakistani state.

It is also important to note that Pakistani security forces’ heavy-handedness has played a big role in fuelling negative sentiments of the people. It is important for Pakistani security forces to build trust with the people of Balochistan and people routinely going missing is extremely worrying from a human rights perspective, but also in the sense it could exacerbate a poor security situation in the province.

Baloch people may also be targeted by terrorist groups like BLA for cooperating with the Pakistani state against terrorists and their collaborators, which further strengthens the need for the Pakistani state to improve relations with the locals – if the Pakistani state wants the Baloch people to cooperate with them, they should first earn their trust.

If underdevelopment, marginalisation and persecution continue in Balochistan, while terrorist groups continue to push nationalist propaganda, it could increase the frequency of terrorist attacks linked to the separatist cause.