Pakistan riverlands terrorised, transfixed by Tiktok Bandits taunting authorities

Pakistani gangster Shahid Lund Baloch taunts authorities online, romanticizing his crimes while police struggle to capture him.

With a showman’s flair and an outlaw’s moustache, the Pakistani gangster dials the hotline on his own most wanted notice — taunting the authorities who put a bounty on his head.

Staring down the lens in a social media clip, Shahid Lund Baloch challenges the official on the phone and his thousands of viewers: “Do you know my circumstances or my reasons for taking up arms?”

The 28-year-old is hiding out in riverine terrain in central Punjab which has long offered refuge to bandits — using the Internet to enthral citizens even as he preys on them, police say. On TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram he fascinates tens of thousands with messages delivered gun-in-hand, romanticising his rural lifestyle and cultivating a reputation as a champion of the people. But he is wanted for 28 cases including murder, abduction and attacks on police — with a 10 million (Pakistani) rupee price on his head.

“People who are sitting on the outside think he is a hero, but the people here know he is no hero,” said Javed Dhillon, a former lawmaker for Rahim Yar Khan district close to the hideouts of Baloch, and other bandits like him.

“They have been at the receiving end of his cruelty and violence.”

Baloch is said to dwell on a sandy island in the “Katcha lands” — roughly translating as “backwaters” — on the Indus River which skewers Pakistan from top to bottom.

High-standing crops provide cover for ambushes and the region is riven by shifting seasonal waterways that complicate pursuit over crimes ranging from kidnapping to highway robbery and smuggling. At the intersection of three of Pakistan’s four provinces, gangs with hundreds of members have for decades capitalised on poor coordination between police forces by flitting across jurisdictions.