Baloch Should Seek Demographic Guarantees from State

By Razzak Abro

KARACHI: The Baloch struggling for their rights should seek demographic guarantees from the state instead of striving for separation, Justice (r) Wajihuddin Ahmed said at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Tuesday.

While addressing a seminar titled ‘The Case of Missing Persons of Balochistan’, Ahmed said, “In case Balochistan loses joint cover (being a federating unit in Pakistan), it would turn into a colony of international forces, which are already active in the region for their vested interests.”

The Baloch Unity Conference, a Karachi-based organisation, had organised the seminar in collaboration with the KPC, and invited politicians, lawyers and intellectuals from Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. Ahmed, who had contested the presidential election against President Asif Ali Zardari, said the present time was the best for seeking the state’s guarantees while a Baloch was the head of the state.

Majority of the participants of the seminar, however, did not support his point of view, as they vocally disagreed with him.

He disagreed with Hamid Ali Khan and Ahmed Owais, former leaders of the lawyers’ bodies, who considered the missing persons’ issue of the whole country the same.

The missing persons’ issue in other parts of the country is totally different from the case of the missing persons of Balochistan, as it is linked entirely with the ongoing war on terror, he said. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan leader Iqbal Haider expressed views similar to Ahmed’s and said Baloch’s struggle for separation could not be supported.

He also criticised the establishment, saying that it should not have dissolved the previous governments of Baloch leaders Attaullah Mengal and Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo.

He said people from Sindh and Punjab were also among the missing persons. Speakers from Sindh and Balochistan, however, mostly agreed with each other on the issue of the missing Baloch and injustices done to the people of Balochistan.

Jamaat-e-Islami’s Maulana Asadullah Bhutto said ensuring safe return of the missing Baloch people was the responsibility of the state.

He said Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry should take up the missing persons’ issue on top priority basis. All those who had supported the CJP in the movement for an independent judiciary are not satisfied with the speed of providing justice, he added.

Jeay Sindh Mahaz leader Abdul Khaliq Junejo said Balochistan’s issues could not be resolved in this system. He said the judiciary and political parliament could not do anything in this regard because all the state institutions were working to keep the system intact.

The programme’s organiser Majeed Baloch said all the democratic and progressive forces should come forward to support the movement of the Baloch’s rights.
Source:Daily Times: Wednesday, July 21, 2010

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