Women suicide bomber was a teacher in Balochistan

KARACHI: Shari Hayat Baloch, the woman terrorist who targeted the Chinese teachers outside the Karachi University on Tuesday, belonged to the Kech district of Balochistan.

Shari was born on January 3, 1991 in Tehsil Tump. Her father had retired as a registrar from a university in Balochistan. They were seven siblings, including four sisters. Shari Baloch was a mother of two, a son and a daughter. Mir Hassan is 4 years old and Mahrosh 8 years old. Shari Baloch did her Master’s in Education from the Allama Iqbal Open University in 2014, after which she obtained a master’s degree in Zoology from the Balochistan University in 2015. It is said that she was also a student of the Physics Department of the Karachi University but it could not be confirmed. She got a job in the Balochistan Education Department in 2019 and until the last moment worked as a teacher in the Government Council Middle School, Union Council Kalatak, 20 kms from Turbat, Balochistan. She taught science to female students.

Shari's husband, Dr Hebatan Bashir, was a dentist and a lecturer at a medical college in Balochistan. He is currently studying in the Jinnah Sindh Medical University for a master's degree in Public Health. During a picnic party by the university last month, he looked normal and satisfied. According to fellow students, Dr Hebatan took regular classes. This was the batch of Balochistan students in which 30 students from Balochistan were funded by the USAID for accommodation in a four-star hotel along with fees and monthly stipend.

Sources said the terrorist Shari Baloch belonged to a well-educated family and started nationalist politics on the platform of the Baloch Students Organisation in her student days. She joined the Majeed Brigade of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army some two years back where she was groomed as a suicide attacker.

The sources said the family had learnt about her terror act through the media and since then it was not responding to journalists for security reasons. There is social media propaganda that the terrorist had committed the act to avenge her missing family members. Family sources, however, said that had never happened.

The sources said most of her family members are well-educated and work on lucrative positions in government departments. The sources expressed ignorance that Shari was a student of the Karachi University.

There were also reports of her husband's fleeing the country. The sources said her husband was living in a hotel close to the Jinnah Hospital and she had been there with her family too. Her doctor husband was said to be part of a training programme in the Jinnah Hospital and he took to social media after the blast and eulogized her.

The sources said the doctor was also involved in the incident and might have been the mastermind. He was off the scene with the children before the blast and reports suggested he might have fled the country.

The sources said the suicide attacker carrying explosives entered the university from the Silver Jubilee Gate and the woman she had met there was her last-minute handler who handed her a briefcase and left.