The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) has reacted strongly to the armed attack on the Girls Degree College in Noshki, the shooting of female students and the forced closure of ‘Vision Public School’, condemning these atrocities in the strongest terms and placing full responsibility for all these incidents directly on the state.
The statement said: “Yesterday, 27 October, armed men entered the Girls Degree College in Noshki and opened indiscriminate fire on the female students studying there. In this cowardly act, three Baloch daughters aged seventeen and eighteen were shot for the sole crime of being in a classroom to get an education. On the same day, armed men entered ‘Vision Public School’ in Qadirabad and forced it to close as well. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee condemns both attacks in the strongest terms and holds the state fully responsible.
The committee said that between 11 am and 12 noon on 27 October, three masked armed men entered the college building and went straight to the principal’s office, where they smashed the furniture and destroyed the security cameras. They then moved towards the female students, threatened them, ordered them not to move, and opened fire inside the college.
According to the spokesperson, 17-year-old second-year student Maryam was wounded by a bullet; doctors have removed it and she is being treated in Quetta. Eighteen-year-old Rukhsana, also a second-year student, was badly hit in the abdomen and spine; she has had surgery but one bullet is still in her body, and she is fighting for her life in Quetta. Seventeen-year-old Maimoona was hit in the leg; she is out of danger and has been taken home.
The statement said that shortly before this attack, armed men entered ‘Vision Public School’ in Qadirabad, harassed the children, forced the school to close and warned the administration that they would pay the price if it reopened. This did not start today; earlier this year, Professor Ghamkhwar Hayat was shot and martyred just a few metres from the same college. Now the guns have reached inside the college walls. A teacher killed outside the wall, a school closed by threats and female students shot inside the college—no one in Balochistan believes this is mere coincidence or a random incident.
Raising questions about the incident, the committee asked: why did the principal lock her office and leave the college 10 to 15 minutes before the attackers arrived? How did the men on motorcycles, for whom a vehicle was also waiting outside, escape so easily in broad daylight? The FC checkpost set up in the name of security is right next to the college, yet the attackers left by the same road and no one stopped them. Whose protection is that checkpost there for?
The statement said the answer to these questions is perfectly clear. These are the state’s ‘death squads’, which the state keeps to do its dirty work without its uniform. These operatives come and go easily through the same checkposts where ordinary Baloch citizens are stopped and humiliated. This is not a security failure but open permission given by the state.
According to the committee, the state fears an educated Baloch woman more than anything else: a woman who studies, asks questions, speaks at gatherings and leads protest marches. That is why the guns have been turned towards a girls’ college. They want to see our daughters inside four walls, silent and afraid, and to force parents not to send their daughters to school.
The statement said these attacks are a blatant violation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan (which guarantees the protection of every citizen’s life) and Article 25-A (which makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right of every child). These actions also negate Pakistan’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The very state whose constitutional duty was to protect these girls is letting armed men pass easily through its checkposts.
The spokesperson said the Baloch Yakjehti Committee completely rejects the fear that is being planted in every Baloch home, and we will not accept any so-called inquiry commission that ends only in a sealed file.
The committee said ‘Vision Public School’ must be reopened immediately with a full guarantee of the safety of teachers and children. The state must explain publicly how the armed men passed through the FC checkpost without any obstruction. An impartial and independent investigation must be held into the Noshki girls’ college attack and the killing of Professor Ghamkhwar Hayat, not by the same institutions that let the killers escape so easily.
Finally, it appealed to national and international human rights organisations to take immediate notice of these atrocities against education in Noshki, send an independent fact-finding mission and hold the Pakistani state accountable.
