Sardar Akhtar Mengal, a tribal elder and head of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal from Balochistan in Pakistan. (Photo: Wikipedia)
A Baloch nationalist party called off its protest blockade in support of detained activists in southwest Pakistan on April 16, fearing its impact on traders in the impoverished province.
Thousands of ethnic Baloch protesters staged a 20-day sit-in rally demanding the release of Mahrang Baloch, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights advocates, who was detained last month along with several other women.
The leader of the protest, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, ended the rally on April 16 “solely out of concern for the people of Balochistan, who have been severely affected by the road blockages.”
“We are calling off the sit-in, but our protests will continue,” Mengal, a tribal elder and head of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, told a news conference in Mastung district, where his rally has been held up by police for more than a week.
The chamber of commerce in Quetta, the provincial capital, told local media that the rally had caused economic losses of $120,000 a day, with traders complaining that their loaded trucks could not cross into Iran or Afghanistan.
The decision came a day after a Pakistan court refused to rule on the detention of the activist Baloch, who, along with criminal charges of terrorism, sedition and murder, faces a public order offence brought by the provincial government.
The court instead passed the case to the government, a decision her lawyers said would delay justice.
Balochistan, on the borders with Iran and Afghanistan, is Pakistan’s poorest province and is in the grip of separatist militants who regularly carry out attacks on security forces, including a train siege last month that killed dozens of people.
The separatists say the province’s rich mineral wealth is being given away to outsiders, including foreign investors, in a region where most people live below the poverty line.
The violence has been met with a severe crackdown by authorities that human rights groups say has swept up thousands of innocent people.
Pakistan’s powerful army chief downplayed the growing insurgency in an address aired by state television on April 16.
“1,500 people will say that they are going to take away Balochistan from us? Your next 10 generations can not even take it from us,” General Syed Asim Munir said.
He said foreign investment would flow into the region after Pakistan hosted a mining conference this month.
Last year was the deadliest in a decade in Pakistan, with a sharp rise in attacks along the border with Afghanistan.
The article appeared in the ucanews