Pakistan is systematically deploying enforced disappearances and detention without charge — tools long used against dissidents in Balochistan — against women across the country who refuse to be silenced, according to an analysis published by Parrhesia News. The pattern, documented on 4 October 2026, spans Baloch students, human rights lawyers, and the sisters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The Balochistan Crackdown

The most documented cases emerge from Balochistan. On 27 August, the provincial government declared nine women from Gwadar, Jiwani, and Turbat 'highly wanted', offering rewards of up to Rs 1.5 million for information leading to their capture. Authorities linked them to a group labelled 'Fitna al-Hindustan' but provided no verifiable evidence and no indication that any formal charges had been filed.

Before this announcement, several women had already reportedly disappeared. Safia Baloch, a 20-year-old student, was allegedly taken from Quetta. A 17-year-old identified as Aqsa vanished along with her father in Khuzdar. Three other women were reportedly detained at a Frontier Corps checkpoint and have not been seen since.

Italian journalist Francesca Marino, writing in an analysis for Parrhesia News, described a deliberate sequencing of state action: 'First women vanish; then the state explains why women should be feared,' she wrote. She further argued that the 'Fitna al-Hindustan' designation deliberately blurs the line 'between combatant, activist, lawyer, relative, and suspect,' allowing authorities to label any protester a 'facilitator' and any missing woman a 'hidden militant.'

Beyond Balochistan: Imran Khan's Sisters Detained

According to the report, the same pattern of pre-emptive, uncharged detention is now being applied outside Balochistan. Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan, and Noreen Niazi — the sisters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan — were issued 30-day detention orders in Lahore ahead of a protest demanding their brother's release from prison.

The report was explicit about the legal basis for these detentions, or the lack thereof: 'They were not detained because a court had established that they had committed a crime. They were detained because the government feared what they might persuade others to do in the future,' the analysis stated.

Courts Overruled by Security Apparatus

The case of human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari-Hazir illustrates what the report characterises as a structural breakdown in judicial authority. Mazari-Hazir, who represents families of forcibly disappeared persons, was re-arrested — along with her husband — within hours of the Supreme Court granting them bail.

'A court may order a prisoner released; the security apparatus will decide whether the order has any practical meaning,' the report observed. This episode, critics argue, signals that judicial remedies are being rendered ineffective when they conflict with the security establishment's priorities.

A Broader Shift in State Practice

Marino's analysis frames the developments as a qualitative shift in how Pakistan's state apparatus operates: 'The method long associated with and justified by Pakistan's peripheral conflicts has now an entirely domestic political application,' she wrote. What was once presented as a counter-insurgency tool in peripheral provinces is, according to the report, now being used as routine political management across the country.

This comes amid sustained international scrutiny of Pakistan's human rights record, with rights organisations having long documented enforced disappearances in Balochistan. The extension of these practices to more visible political figures and urban centres marks a significant — and, critics argue, deeply troubling — escalation. How Pakistani civil society, the judiciary, and the international community respond in the coming weeks will be closely watched.