QUETTA, July 17: Senator Moheem Khan, a leader of the Balochistan National Party (Awami), has criticized the parliamentary committee’s recommendations about giving rights on a parity basis to the two ethnic groups in the province.

Talking to newsmen here on Sunday, he called upon Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, that the best solution of Baloch/Pukhtun rights would be the re-demarcation of the provinces on a linguistic, cultural and historical basis.

Mr Moheem said that his party had reservations over the recommendations of the parliamentary committee and “we will not back the proposals until our apprehensions are removed”.

He was critical of the committee’s suggestion that the parity formula would resolve the issues between the Baloch and Pukhtuns in Balochistan and emphasized that a re-demarcation of the provinces would settle all contentious issues among the ethnic groups in the country.

Regarding Nawab Akbar Bugti’s proposal for a collective platform to achieve the national rights of the Baloch, the BNP-Awami leader said that the suggestion was positive and the Baloch could get their rights through unity but stressed that for a single platform the national spirit should be the supreme objective “to sideline the Sardari outlook”.

Senator Moheem said that the Baloch had apprehensions regarding uplift programmes, and added that the government was unwilling to accommodate the just demand of the people.

He said that a local official was transferred from the chairmanship of the Gwadar port authority and replaced by an “outsider” which created suspicions in the minds of the people.

He said that a fair formulation of the new NFC award demanded that area, backwardness and revenue be included in the distribution of resources to satisfy all provinces.