QUETTA: A Baloch activist who died in self-exile in Canada in December was brought home and laid to rest in her home village in Balochistan under tight security, activists said Monday.
Only the immediate family of 37-year-old Karima Mehrab Baloch were allowed to attend her funeral on Sunday in the village of Tump in Balochistan.
Her supporters claim troops had sealed off the village and prevented them from attending her burial. Her remains were brought to Pakistan from Canada earlier on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the government, but a video that surfaced on social media shows soldiers turning back several mourners who are heard in the footage saying they wanted to pay their last respects to Karima.
Her body was found on December 22 near Toronto’s downtown waterfront, a place that she liked and often visited, a day after she was reported missing.
Toronto police have not treated her death as suspicious though there were allegations by her supporters that she was killed. They have offered no evidence to support their claims.
A critic of security agencies, Karima secured asylum in Canada in 2016. In December, she received a mention in the EUDisinfoLab report exposing the massive Indian disinformation network in Europe targeting Pakistan.
Her death has raised suspicions among rights activists, who on Monday denounced authorities for holding the funeral in near secrecy.
“It is not difficult to understand how this will deepen the divide and fuel separatism,” Mohsin Dawar, MP and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader, tweeted.
It is appalling to see how Karima Baloch’s dead body is being treated. It is not difficult to understand how this will deepen the divide and fuel separatism. Is this the strategy to deal with the Baloch insurgency, to sprinkle salt on the wounds of Baloch? #KarimaBaloch pic.twitter.com/8NhGdA0FTz
— Mohsin Dawar (@mjdawar) January 24, 2021
Following her death, Amnesty International South Asia said the incident should be “effectively investigated,” while the Human Rights Council of Balochistan called for the Canadian government to look into the matter.
On Sunday, Canadian authorities, in response to a request of the Pakistan High Commission, Ottawa, declared Karima’s death as “non-criminal”.
“After a thorough investigation, officers determined that this was a non-criminal death and that no foul play was suspected,” it said.
Angered over the situation, a Baloch nationalist group — the Baloch Solidarity Committee — issued a call for a daylong strike and complete shutdown in Balochistan on Monday.
