My book project focuses on a conflict-ridden frontier zone between Baluchistan and British Punjab (now in Pakistan) during the nineteenth century. I aim to understand the processes of state-making in regions that were ‘adept in the art of not being governed’ (James Scott). In doing so, I examine local conflicts in which the colonial state, aspiring to establish its sovereignty in this area, was not only an arbitrator but also a participant alongside local disputants. I investigate disputes involving runaway women to understand why such cases were extensively documented in the colonial archive. I inquire what this documentation, as well as British involvement as arbitrators in such cases, reveals about imperial objectives and state-making in this region. In this presentation, I will narrate the story of a runaway woman from the Baluch borderland to illustrate how the fight over her custody becomes a medium for introducing colonial law in a legally anomalous zone.