Monday, February 28, 2005
Balochis not terrorists, but fighting for rights: Bugti
* Jamhoori Watan Party chief says Centre trampling provincial autonomy
Staff Report
LAHORE: Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the chief of the Jamhoori Watan Party of Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), said on Sunday that the Baloch people were struggling for their rights as the Palestinians were but the government, following in the footsteps of Israel, called them terrorists.
Talking to reporters at the house of Qazi Abdul Qadeer Khamosh, the vice president of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), on the phone from Dera Bugti, Mr Bugti said that Balochis were not terrorists but the government was victimising them with state terrorism. “They are demanding jobs and the regime is giving them cantonments,” Bugti added.
He said that Pakistan was set up as an Islamic republic but the rulers had turned into it into an un-Islamic and undemocratic state for their petty interests. He said that the Centre had been plundering Balochistan’s resources for the last 56 years and it was kept backward.
He alleged that successive governments had denied people their rights and trampled the provinces’ autonomy and that was why East Pakistan was separated but the governments had not learnt a lesson from it. He said that Pakistan was facing a 1971-like situation at the hands of the present regime.
Bugti said that Baloch leaders were holding talks with the federal government, which were obstructed because of a doctor’s rape in Sui. He said that the government tried to conceal facts about the case due to which clashes erupted and law-enforcement agencies targeted people in retaliation for the Balochistan Liberation Front’s (BLF’s) attacks on the armed forces.
Bugti said the JWP demanded a committee consisting of Senator Mushahid Hussain and Irshad Ahmad Haqqani to investigate the rape case but nobody listened. “We want Capt Hammad, the accused in the rape, arrested and produced before the Baloch tribes for a trial according to tribal traditions,” Bugti said.
“I don’t know who Capt Hammad is? I only know that he is the brother of a serving general and a bureaucrat from Punjab,” Mr Bugti said, adding that had President Pervez Musharraf been serious about resolving the problem, he would have taken stern action against the suspect and his accomplices. He said that the government should start development projects in Balochistan according the Balochis’ wishes.
The JWP chief said that the BLF was struggling for people’s rights, Online reported. He said that Dera Bugti was cordoned off by more than a division of the Army and government would be responsible for the trouble that occurred there. Buti rejected the government propaganda that Balochis were opposed to Balochistan’s development and said that the JWF wanted the province on par with Punjab but did not want the development ‘imposed’ on Balochis. He said that there was no terrorism in Balochsitan and if people stood up for their rights, they could not be called terrorists.
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