Who’s To Blame For Baloch Plight, If Not Pakistan: BNP

Balochistan National Party president Akhtar Mengal at the Pakistan Democratic Movement Karachi power show hit out at the Imran Khan government for inflicting atrocities on the people of Balochistan saying that if Pakistan is not to be blamed for the atrocities, who should be blamed.

“When mothers and sisters come to know about a body at the hospital, they can identify their son/brother’s body not by looking at their face but by seeing the footwear. They identify their ward by looking at the clothes that they were wearing while they were subjected to torture,” he said.

He added, “Is this the Pakistan, which has been declared an Islamic state? Are such atrocities are inflicted upon people? Was this country made for us, or for DHA? Is it made for those who live in this country or for cantonments, for the public or for the pizza guys?”

The BNP president further said that the blood of the Baloch people is being shed across the country adding that the people of Balochistan can’t even grieve the atrocities they are facing.

“If we don’t blame them (Pakistan government), then who do we blame? Ourselves? I am ready to salute you if you are ready to give me an account of the bloodshed of my fellow Baloch and only then I shall salute you,” he said further.

Balochistan is a resource-rich but least developed province of Pakistan where a movement for freedom is ongoing for the past several decades. Many Baloch believe that the region was independent before 1947 and was forcibly occupied by Pakistan.

Pakistan Army has launched several operations in Balochistan and has supported criminals, whom locals call “death squads”.

A large number of political activists, intellectuals, women and children in Pakistan’s Balochistan province are victims of enforced disappearances by the security agencies.

Many of them are languishing in detention centres whereas mutilated bodies of some of these abducted Baloch are found in isolated places. (ANI)