www.dawn.com/2006/11/26/top5.htm

By Saleem Shahid

QUETTA, Nov 25: More than 150 workers of the Balochistan National Party have been arrested all over the province, including Khuzdar, Kalat, Gwadar, Pasni, Turbat, Jewani, Ormara, Panjgur, Nushki.

“Law enforcement agencies have taken hundreds of leaders and workers (of the party) into custody from different areas of Balochistan,” Abdur Rauf Mengal, a BNP (Mengal) leader, told this correspondent over telephone on Saturday.

He termed these arrests an attempt on the part of the government to stop the Lashkar-i-Balochistan’s Gwadar-Quetta ‘long march’ that had been planned by the party. The ‘march’ had been planned as a mode of protest against the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, ongoing military operation, arrests of political workers and the launching of mega projects in the province by the federal government.

The BNP-M leader said that the party remained undeterred, adding that it would still stage the march from Nov 29. “Such arrests cannot force the BNP-M to give up its protest campaign.”

Terming protest democratic right of all political parties, he said that the BNP was only exercising its democratic right.

Meanwhile, president of the BNP (Mengal) Sardar Akhtar Mengal, secretary-general of the National Party Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo and Mir Jan Mohammad Buledi have strongly condemned the arrests of BNP-M workers and said that undemocratic steps would worsen the situation in the province.

In separate statements, the three Baloch nationalist leaders said here on Friday night that the arrests and political victimisation would not deter the BNP-M or other parties. They also condemned the move to implicate Khan of Kalat Mir Suleman Daud, Balochistan Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani and BNP leader Wazir Khan Rind in a bomb blast at the house of the Dera Bugti DCO. They urged human rights organisations to take notice of the situation and work for the release of political workers arrested in the province.