QUETTA: The government would make no compromise with elements challenging the writ of the state and continue to hunt them down, the Balochistan chief minister said on Monday.

He was speaking to a delegation of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE), headed by its president Zia Shahid.

Sanaullah Zehri said the government was fighting terrorism on two fronts — the “so-called Baloch freedom fighters” in predominantly Baloch areas and the “sectarian fanatics” from the province’s Pakhtun areas.

He said it was deplorable that when Baloch militants killed an innocent man, certain elements refused to call it an act of terror since it was carried out by “a disgruntled man”.

“People sitting outside the country are involved in disturbing peace in Balochistan,” Sanaullah Zehri alleged.

He recalled that there was a time when people refrained from playing the national anthem in educational institutions out of fear, but the “situation has changed now because of the government’s dogged pursuit of terrorists”.

The chief minister called upon the media to promote national unity, complaining at the same time that its “focus was more on those involved in terrorism than the victims”.

Referring to threats from militant organisations that disallowed circulation of newspapers and disrupted TV transmission all over Balochistan, Mr Zehri said “militants are taking out their frustration on the media”.

Federal Minister retired Lt General Abdul Qadir Baloch and provincial home minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti also spoke about the situation in Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2017