In Pakistan, two women were wrongly identified as suicide bomber due to shared name — Dawn
In Pakistan, photographs of at least two women named Mahal Baloch were circulated on social media with the false caption “suicide bomber” after the 2024 explosion in Lasbela. One of them was a mother of three underage daughters who had no connection to the attack. This was established by the fact-checking platform iVerify Pakistan, with confirmation from the deputy inspector general of police of Balochistan’s counterterrorism department, Dawn reports.
According to iVerify Pakistan, the attacker was another Mahal Baloch — a 23-year-old law student and member of the Balochistan Liberation Army who used the alias Zilan Kurd. Posts featuring photographs of the woman who was mistakenly identified as the attacker were viewed by thousands of people and shared by hundreds of users within minutes.
Consequences for the family
Lawyer Imran Baloch said that publishing his client’s name and personal details had put the safety of her entire family at risk. According to him, the woman’s children cannot attend school and extracurricular classes normally because of the constant fear of persecution.
The family, consisting of Mahal herself, her three daughters and two elderly women, lived in an apartment in Quetta as temporary residents. According to the lawyer, the landlord was pressured to evict the family, but refused. Baloch also claims that journalists and media outlets failed to observe basic verification standards before linking his client to the explosion.
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Videos used by mistake
Another Mahal Baloch, an artist who was about 800 kilometres from Quetta, also became a victim of false identification. Her photos and videos were published as images of the attacker. According to the artist, clips were taken from a podcast in which she participated, edited and circulated online. For more than a month, she said, she was viewed through the prism of this unfounded accusation.
The problem of information verification
iVerify Pakistan coordinator Syed Talal Ahsan linked the spread of disinformation to weak editorial oversight, low levels of media literacy and limited access to reliable information. In Balochistan, internet disruptions and communication restrictions complicate verification. Manzoor Ahmed, president of the Balochistan Union of Journalists, noted that false messages on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and TikTok spread faster than journalists, fact-checkers or authorities can verify them.
Nighat Dad, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, said that platforms should be responsible not only for hosting a false post but also for its algorithmic distribution. In her view, regions where conflicts create risks to people’s safety need risk assessments, moderation in local languages and effective mechanisms for removing copies of false content.
