QUETTA, Oct 14: The National Party and the Balochistan National Party (Mengal) said on Friday that they would launch a protest movement against illegal detentions if the government did not release all detained political activists in the province within 15 days.

Speaking at a press conference in the opposition leader’s chamber in the Balochistan Assembly secretariat, opposition leader Kachkol Ali and BNP-M parliamentary leader Mir Mohammad Akbar Mengal alleged that hundreds of political activists were behind the bar.

They claimed that 15 students from the Turbat degree college and tribal elder Mir Abdul Hakim from Khuzdar were arrested a few days back by an intelligence agency and taken to an unknown place. Under the law arrested people had to be presented in court within 24 hours “but the rulers were keeping Baloch people in secret cells”.