By Sarah Saeed

Modern wars and conflicts can now no longer be waged in the traditional manner through armed struggles and attacks. In modern cases of hybrid and proxy wars, the battle continues in the realms of stories and the exploitation of moral legitimacy. In this respect, the emergence and rise of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, must also be understood in relation to these changes taking place in modern conflict scenarios. In this case, rather than acting simply as a civil society and human rights body, empirical evidence since the year 2025 indicates the further role played by the BYC in acting as a soft face and supportive mechanism for separatist forces in Pakistan’s Fitna-e-Hindustan.

It fits well within proxy war literature that describes how non-state or external sponsors can evade confrontation through proxy groups, like social movements or interest groups, in order to promote strategic intentions. Within these paradigms, violence is paired with "narrative warfare" that can allow terrorism to become conceptualized as political grievance and counterterrorism to become defined as repression.

The securitization theory of the Copenhagen School provides a useful lens to analyze BYC's role. According to this framework, political actors transform specific issues into existential threats through speech acts, thereby legitimizing extraordinary responses. In Balochistan, however, this process seems to work in reverse. Acts of terrorism are being reconstituted into human rights violations-what has come to be commonly known as enforced disappearances-even before the identity, affiliation, and legal status of the terrorist/victim are established. This narrative twist shifts the locus from violence to victimhood and negates the state's ability to frame terrorism within a security paradigm.

How this post-event play out of narratives appears in practical scenarios is best exemplified by what happened after the March 2025 Jaffar Express attack. When activists of the BYC party, in what was presumably led by their higher-ups, tried to forcibly get custody of the bodies of Standing Out From The Past-The Case of BYC mediated militants from hospitals despite them being harmless was neither a humanitarian gesture nor a part of any peaceful mission to bring change in society. This was an attempt to pre-emptively frame militants as victims rather than perpetrators in retaliation for what was perceived to be an unjust outcome of the attack.

Official pronouncements by the Inter-Services Public Relations, the Pakistani military public relations wing, in March and May 2025 had specifically called out the use of terrorism in Balochistan as being maintained not only through the use of arms and funding but also through the use of propaganda through proxies. These claims transcended into the realm of possibilities when, in January 2026, the Counter Terrorism Department had proof of the arrested facilitators’ direct affiliation with BYC.

Sajid Ahmed, a graduate in sociology from the International Islamic University Islamabad, as well as a lecturer in public colleges and the University of Turbat, currently under arrest, throws a significant spanner in the works regarding simplistic understandings related to radicalization. The theory of radicalization, especially modern frameworks, highlights the ideological mobilization of people who may be uneducated or from economically marginalized sections. Instead, identity politics, morality, or feelings of injustice have been recognized as capable of radicalizing people who are well-educated, have the required social capital, and serve as catalyst mediaries between terrorists and the civil environment, as seen in Sajid Ahmed's association with BYC.

What is more disturbing is its apparent role in serving as a starting ground for mobilization for minors. Disclosures from the Counter Terrorism Department have found evidence that juveniles were initially introduced to BYC-protests, road blockages, and symbolic activism before being skillfully channeled into support and scouting missions for terrorists. This follows the pattern established when social movements themselves became radicals, with minors being initially assimilated into non-violent activism before being progressively encouraged to venture into violence.

The exploitation of personal loss and grievance, for instance, by targeting young individuals from those affected by militant and security operations, fits the grievance exploitation paradigm for militant organization recruitment. Through this process, emotional loss turns into a source of a personal, or rather, a political identity, which is further channeled into action by organizational pipelines distinguishing between activism and militancy.

International engagement efforts by BYC, surtout in Europe, solidify its place within a united proxy policy. Public relations efforts, intelligent promotion of isolated incidents, and a connection with overall messages opposing Pakistan indicate a structured organization more so than a reaction from diaspora groups. In a proxy conflict, international campaigning not only increases awareness but is a vehicle to exert diplomatic pressure on a target country.

The government of Pakistan's move towards setting up rehabilitation centers in Quetta and the city of Turbat is an indication of the realization that the task is not just a kinetic process. Psychological counseling and social reintegration are essential dimensions of the process of counter-radicalization. All these can be effective provided the entire ecosystem of the facilitating of the narratives as well as the ideological grooming is taken care of.

Considered together, the Jaffar Express incident, the ISPR disclosures of 2025, and the evidence-based briefing by the Counter Terrorism Department in January 2026 present a cogent and cumulative official record. This points to a disturbing conclusion: that the Baloch Yakjehti Committee is no longer a free-standing human rights organization but has become a multi-faceted support structure, serving as a recruitment conduit, narrative shield, and international liaison for a wider insurgent enterprise.

The most dangerous actors in modern conflicts are often not those bearing weapons but those shaping meaning. To ignore such networks risks conceding the narrative battlefield-a concession that no state confronting hybrid warfare can afford.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The South Asia Times