QUETTA, April 5: The Balochistan National Party (Mengal) has condemned the besieging of party chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal’s residence in Karachi by law-enforcement agencies. Speaking at a press conference at the press club here on Wednesday, party’s vice-president Sajid Tareen and information secretary Senator Sana Baloch warned the intelligence agencies of dire consequences if any thing happened to the party leaders.

They accused the intelligence agencies of harassing the children of Akhtar Mengal and said that army officials had tried to kidnap them while they were on their way to school on Tuesday but their guards had caught two of them, Qurban Hussain and Fayyaz Ahmed. They said that the two were freed on the intervention of the Sindh chief secretary.

The BNP leaders claimed that after the incident, heavy contingents of Rangers and police had encircled Sardar Mengal’s residence besides taking positions on rooftops of nearby buildings.

They termed the law-enforcement agencies’ action unlawful and said that the party leaders would not be intimidated, adding that they would not relent in their struggle for the rights of Baloch people.

The BNP leaders called for “international intervention” in Balochistan to save the Baloch people “from oppressive methods of security forces”.

They claimed that intelligence agencies were running government affairs in Balochistan after the failure of a military operation to suppress the political movement in Dera Bugti and Kohlu, adding that they were now trying to physically eliminate nationalist leaders.

They claimed that 900 tribesmen had been killed since the start of the military operation while hundreds of political workers had been illegally detained.

The BNP leaders accused the government of trying to sideline nationalist leaders and said that the Baloch people would neither surrender nor make any compromise on the rights and resources of Balochistan.