BASIMA: Maulana Hidayatur Rehman Baloch, general secretary of Jamaat-i-Islami’s Balochistan chapter, has criticised the closure of Pak-Iran border and urged the authorities to reopen the border for trade activities.

He announced that he would gather 100,000 people to force the authorities to reopen the border to enable hundreds of thousands of people earn their livelihood.

He was addressing a public meeting in Basima town of Washuk district in which workers of different political parties participated.

The JI leader said Balochistan was facing a “martial law despite having a civilian government”. He said that the masses were suffering “financial assassination” in the province where drugs could be transported freely but no one was allowed to bring food items from Iran’s border towns.

“We have been incarcerated between fences in our own motherland where we are being treated as strangers,” Maulana Baloch said. “Our sea has also been made a no-go area for us where illegal trawling is continuing for long.”

He alleged that the provincial ministers were fighting for their vested interests amid the protests against “killings by security forces” in Hoshab and other parts of Balochistan.

Urging the masses to stand up against injustices, Maulana Baloch said that an environment of fear and panic had been created in Balochistan to suppress the voices demanding rights for the masses.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2021