QUETTA, May 23: A complete shutter-down strike was observed on Friday in Gwadar, Turbat and Panjgur against Gwadar Master Plan and allotment of lands to outsiders in the future port city of Balochistan.
The Jamhoori Watan Party, Balochistan National Movement and Balochistan National Party-Mengal had given a joint call for the strike against what they termed not taking the district government, political parties and people of the area into confidence regarding the master plan.
All shopping centres and plazas, markets and bazaars remained closed for the whole day in all the three districts.
Though some shopkeepers opened their business in the morning in Turbat Bazaar, when political activists informed them about the shutter-down strike, they closed the shops.
The strike was also observed in coastal town Jewni, but traders and businessmen did not respond positively in Pasni and continued their business throughout the day.
“It was a complete, but peaceful shutter-down strike,” Mohammad Ali, a police official of Gwadar police station, told Dawn on telephone. Some police and official sources also confirmed a complete strike in Turbat and Panjgur. But the shops in Turbat Bazaar were reopened after Jumma prayers.
Heavy contingents of police, levies, and Balochistan Reserve Police were deployed at government buildings and installations in all the three district headquarters of Makran division.
The police force was patrolling Gwadar and other two cities of the division since morning, but no untoward incident was reported from anywhere during the strike.
The Balochistan-based political parties have rejected the Gwadar Master Plan and described it as anti-people plan, saying that with the implementation of this plan, the people of Gwadar would become minority.
These parties are of the view that local people are badly ignored in providing jobs in the development projects being launched in Gwadar and other areas of Makran division.
“Land in and around Gwadar has already been allotted to outsiders,” Dr Ishaq Baloch, central information secretary of BNM, said and added that the strike had proved that the people of Balochistan would not allow Islamabad and other elements to usurp their rights.
He claimed that through establishing the Gwadar Development Authority, the government wanted to remove local population of Gwadar from the main city and allot this land to multinational companies. The locals, he warned, would fully resist this move.
The BNM office-bearer demanded that the government should present this master plan before the assembly for taking all political parties of the province and Gwadar district government into confidence on the project.
