Key Figures
Ali Mohammad Mengal (left) with Mir Rasool Bakhsh Talpur (right) during a visit to Hyderabad in 1970. Source: Private photo archive of Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur.
Ali Mohammad Mengal. (Unknown DOB) to 1973.
Ali Mohammad Mengal joined Nawab Nouroze Khan in the 1958-1960 insurgency, to protest the arrest of the Khan of Kalat and the establishment of One Unit. In 1960, when the military promised amnesty to Nouroze Khan and his followers, he refused to join them in surrendering. Those who came down from the mountains were arrested, many executed. In the early 1960s, he was at the forefront of armed insurgencies in Mengal-dominated areas. In 1973, Ali Mohammad Mengal once again picked up arms. He was killed on August 10 that year near Kalat, during clashes with the Pakistan Army.
Mir Hazar Khan in Kabul in 1985. Source: Private photo archive of Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur.
Mir Hazar Khan Ramkani Marri. Mid-1940s to 2021.
Mir Hazar Khan’s father, the mukhaddam Gul Khan, fought in the 1918 Battle of Harab, when the Marris refused recruits to the British Imperial Army during World War I. This and Mir Hazar Khan’s own resentment against excessive taxes on flocks and land by Sardar Doda Khan made him resentful of authorities backed by state power. When Sher Mohammad Marri set up the Pararis in northeastern Marri in 1962, Mir Hazar Khan joined him to become a camp commander. He eventually joined thousands of other Baloch to take refuge in Afghanistan, remaining there until the mujahideens overthrew the sitting government.
Mir Lawang Khan holding a rifle outside a building. Source: Private photo archive of Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur.
Mir Lawang Khan. 1901–1973.
Mir Lawang Khan was born in Killi Mengal, Noshki, and educated there until grade four. In 1948, he was harassed by military forces after annexations in Balochistan, forcing his move to Dasht-e-Goran, Kalat, where he owned ancestral property. He is known for his four-hour armed confrontation with military forces when they surrounded his village in 1973. After 25 soldiers and 35 villagers were killed, he was shot; today he is considered a martyr of the Baloch struggle. Mir Gul Khan Nasir, his imprisoned brother known as Balochistan’s informal Poet Laureate, wrote this elegy upon hearing of Mir Lawang Khan’s death.
Sher Mohammad Marri (far right) with Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur (centre) and Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani (far left). Source: Private photo archive of Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur.
Mir Sher Mohammad Marri. 1935–1993.
Mir Sher Mohammad Marri, affectionately called Babu Shero, is widely credited for introducing organised, armed resistance when he founded the Pararis (renamed the BPLF) in 1962. Descending from fighters who resisted British rule (his father, Saidhaan Marri, died in exile in Afghanistan) he was radicalised as a Marxist, prompting the state to bar him from Balochistan for political activities. In 1962, he defied the ban, jumped bail, going first to mountains near Quetta before returning to the Marri Hills, where he set up the first Parari camps. He died in 1993, after returning from five years of self-exile in Kabul.
Third from left, Khair Bakhsh Marri at the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case, next to Mir Gul Khan Nasir (second from left) and Akbar Bugti (far left). Source: Creative Commons.
Khair Bakhsh Marri. 1928–2014.
Khair Bakhsh Marri was named after his grandfather who, unwilling to provide recruits to the British Imperial Army in World War I, fought against them in the 1918 Battles of Gumbaz and Harab. He was an early supporter of Balochistan’s independence, known for his staunch refusal of state patronage unlike other tribal heads. He spent 11 years in self-exile in Afghanistan after the 1970s insurgency, returning in 1992 after the mujahideen takeover. He is known as a “spiritual beacon” of the Baloch struggle. In 2014, at his funeral, his casket was famously carried by women of the Baloch movement.