KARACHI, March 2: The Balochistan National Party-Mengal has planned a mass mobilization programme against the ongoing military operation in Balochistan. Rallies, marches and public meetings will be held in major district headquarters of the province to highlight the atrocities being meted out to Baloch people by the government forces, according to BNP chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal.

Giving details of the programme, he said protest rallies would be held on March 18 in Mastung, Panjgur, Naushki, Mach and Awaran and on March 20 in Kalat, Turbat, Sibi, Dalbadin and Bela. On March 22, protest rallies would be held in Khuzdar, Gwadar, Dera Murad Jamali, Hub and Kharan.

He said that on April 22, a big rally would be held and the participants would march from the Customs House to Regal Chowk. At the rally, the BNP would announce the future course of action, he added.

Sardar Mengal said: “We will adopt all political means to achieve our national objective.”

Commenting on the current situation in Balochistan, he said it was worst ever as compared to that in the uprising in 70s when Baloch people had braved the dictatorial policies of the then regime.

Discussing the issue of Baloch people’s national rights, Sardar Mengal said: “This is the oldest issue as the demand was made when Pakistan came into being. And until today, the Punjabi-dominated Establishment appeared unwilling to resolve it.”

He recalled that it was the same Establishment that had been treating East Pakistan as its colony and calling its leadership traitors and anti-state elements until the ’71 debacle.

Asked to explain the issue, the Baloch leader said the case of Balochistan was no different from that of East Pakistan. It was a question of right to self-rule and provinces’ control of their own resources, he added.

Questioning the justification of the military operation in Balochistan, he argued that bomb blasts and rocket attacks did take place in other parts of the country in the past but no where a military operation had been launched on this ground. “Even Gen Musharraf’s convoy had come under attack but army was not moved in the troubled area to hunt down the culprits,” he added.

The BNP leader remarked: “We are fully aware of the sinister designs of the Islamabad rulers who want to control our natural resources and, for the purpose, they were using brute force.”

He said that the government had unleashed a propaganda campaign against sardars and tribal system in its bid to create an impression that the root-cause of all evils in the province was the tribal system and leaders.

The reminded the rulers that it was the sardars of Kharan, Lasbela, Mekran and Kalat who had voted for Pakistan, and without their support, the country would not have come into being.

No sardar has ever claimed that the wealth of the province was his personal assets. On the contrary, they have always maintained that Balochistan’s natural resources belonged to the people of the province. Even today, a majority of sardars, including Jam of Lasbela, is with the government.

In fact, he noted, the government was against three particular sardars who were struggling for the rights of Baloch people.

When asked to comment on the idea of maximum autonomy to Balochistan within the federation, the Baloch leader said: “The Establishment would never accept this idea. Had it been accepted at the time when Sheikh Mujibur Rehman had presented his six-point formula, the country would not have sustained dismemberment.”