National Party leader criticises Centre’s move to give Afghan refugees citizenship rights

E-Paper | June 14, 2026

GWADAR: Former chief minister of Balochistan and senior leader of National Party (NP) Dr Abdul Malik Baloch has criticised the federal government’s move to grant citizenship rights to Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He said the NP would not let anyone turn Baloch people into minority on their own soil.

Speaking at a public meeting in Behman area of Turbat on Sunday, he asked Baloch people and workers of the National Party to be politically more vigilant and active to safeguard their genuine rights and interests and to meet future challenges.

He also asked party workers to immediately intensify their political activities across the province and to make functional all units of the party.

Dr Baloch said that despite being part of the previous PML-N-led provincial government, the National Party had never compromised on interests of the local people of the province.

He said that the NP government not only had protected the Baloch identity, it also retrieved 350,000 acres of land from powerful land mafia in Gwadar and handed it over to local people.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2018

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Amir Sabir

Oct 01, 2018 05:30pm

Abdul Malik Baloch says NP would not let anyone turn Baloch people into minority on their own soil. People should look at this from the Balochs' perspective. Walk in their shoes. Why should Afghans be given rights Balochs don't have? What has Afghanistan ever done for us? It is time liberals stopped making decisions for the country on humanitarian grounds. It is the Balochs who need the help of Islamabad.

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Ali

Oct 01, 2018 06:01pm

Any politician who opposes giving citizenship to refugee children born in Pakistan is living in the dark ages. Lot of rich women from Pakistan go to the US and UK to give birth there so the children would get those citizenships, even though these rich women's lives were not in danger in Pakistan. Over 4 million Afghans refugees came to Pakistan after Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. So these refugee children were born and grew up in Pakistan, they deserve to be given Pakistani nationality similar to millions of refugees who came to Pakistan after 1947 partition of India by the British.

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