QUETTA, Feb 20: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mir Mohammad Yousaf said on Thursday that the rights of the people of the province will be protected and there will be no compromise on them.

Summing up debate on a resolution regarding Gwadar port on the first day of the winter session of the Balochistan Assembly, he said: “No Balochistani can commit injustice with his own people and displace local people for settling others.”

He said his government would not allow turning of the local population into minority and would ensure protection of their rights in a developed Gwadar.

He said the development process started in Gwadar could not be stopped and after construction of the port more land would be required for the industrial zone.

He said the displaced people should be paid compensation so that they could construct houses at the new place.

“People displaced by the Gwadar deep sea port would be properly rehabilitated,” Jam Yousaf said.

He said local people would get maximum jobs in the project which would play a very important role in the economic development of the country.

The chief minister said the previous governments had allotted lands including the Singhar housing scheme, launched in 1992, in Gwadar. He said that in the first and second phase of the scheme, land was also allocated to people of other provinces.

“I think these allotments should be cancelled and in the third phase people from outside should not be allotted plots,” Jam Yousaf said and added plot owners would be issued 20-day notices for paying non-utilization surcharge. The allotment of plots of those who failed to deposit the surcharge would be cancelled, he said.

The chief minister said he would take the opposition and members of the provincial assembly into confidence regarding Gwadar master plan.

He expressed the hope that the opposition would extend help to him for the protection of Balochistan’s rights.

The resolution, moved by Kachkol Ali, Mir Jan Mohammad Buladi, Rehmat Ali Baloch and Dr Shama Yasmin Ishaq of Balochistan National Movement, demanded jobs for the province’s unemployed youth in the port project on priority basis.

It suggested that investors of other provinces should launch joint ventures in the port city with the collaboration of local people for the protection of Balochistan’s interests.

Kachkol Ali said all possible steps should be taken for the protection of the rights of local people in Gwadar. He said that in the name of development, land was being allotted to the people of other provinces, including generals from Punjab, which would turn the local population into minority.

Home Minister Sardar Sanaullah Zehri said most of the land in Gwadar belonged to the local people and the government could not force them not to sell their property.

They had the right to sell their land and property to anybody, he said.

The house adopted the resolution without opposition from the treasury benches.

It adopted, with an amendment, a resolution moved by Sardar Azam Khan Musakhel of Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party demanding that the federal government take steps for providing natural gas to the entire Balochistan for the protection of forests, which were being cut by the people for firewood.

A resolution moved by PMAP member Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal was passed without opposition of the treasury benches.

It urged the federal government to take measures for the revival of closed industrial unites in Harnai, Quetta, Mastung, Bela and Hub, which would provide jobs to the educated youth of the province.

Deputy Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani said roadblocks, strikes, threats and other factors in Hub were forcing the industrialists to shift their industrial units to other cities.

A resolution was not pressed by the movers, Abdul Rahim Ziaratwall, Sardar Azam Musakhel and Nasim Turyali of PMAP, after the chief minister’s assurance that a committee would be formed for looking into the affairs of Balochistan University and the University of Information Technology and Management Sciences.