Sardar Akhtar Mengal Questions Military Operations as Balochistan
Balochistan National Party chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal has questioned the results of military operations in Balochistan, saying the province is “burning” and young people have taken to the mountains.
Mengal said the operations had been presented as efforts to combat militancy, but asked how many had been carried out and what they had achieved.
“Today, Balochistan is burning, and its youth have taken to the mountains,” he said.
Referring to the arrests of former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi and his associates, Mengal said the elected chief minister and assembly speaker were missing and the provincial government had been taken away. He added that they were not even allowed to protest peacefully, warning that “such a system cannot last.”
Mengal said people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were made to feel like slaves, adding that they would remain so until they became “one nation.” He also questioned how democracy could be claimed when the assembly speaker, a constitutional office-holder, had disappeared in broad daylight.
He said that even during martial law, people holding the speaker’s office had not been arrested. Mengal added that elected representatives and ministers were missing, while members elected through what he called “Form 47” were sitting in the assemblies.
