July 16, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 30, 1428

QUETTA, July 15: The Balochistan National Party (Mengal) has demanded that the military operation in the province should be stopped and all detainees, including BNP-M chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal, be released.

The demand was made through a resolution adopted at a public meeting held on Sunday in Sariab area to mark the Yaum Shuhda-i-Balochistan.

The speakers said hundreds of innocent people had been killed during the operation but the struggle for the national rights of the Baloch would continue.

BNP-M secretary-general Habib Jalib Baloch said Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti had sacrificed his life while fighting the troops in the mountains of Dera Bugti instead of surrendering.

He said President Pervez Musharraf could not suppress the Baloch resistance movement by using the state apparatus. He asserted that a political movement enjoying the backing of people could not be undermined through use of force.

He said the government had used all means, including helicopters, to subdue the voice of patriotic forces but failed to achieve its goals.

The BNP-M leader said the ‘usurpers’ must realise the ground realities, stop looting resources and abandon plans to establish cantonments and mega projects. He said the Baloch people would not allow the exploitation of their resources or execution of the projects aimed at turning them into a minority.

Criticising the government for its inefficiency in providing relief goods, tents and medicines to the victims of recent flood, he appealed to international donor agencies to help them.

He said the government had not paid as much attention to the plight of the victims of the flood, which caused destruction on a large scale, as it had done after Oct 8, 2005, earthquake by convening an international donors’ conference.

The participants of the gathering called upon the government to end the military operation, free all political workers allegedly being tortured in secret cells of intelligence agencies and stop raiding the houses of activists of nationalist parties and harassing their families.