QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Thursday vowed that his government would continue struggle for the province’s rights in a coordinated but peaceful manner and opposed the closure of private media bureaus in the province, expressing full support for journalists facing layoffs.

Speaking in the Balochistan Assembly, the chief minister said if the proposed federal cuts to Balochistan’s funds had gone through, the province would have been left with only Rs9 billion in its budget.

He said the provincial government had worked hard to protect Baloc­hi­s­tan’s financial share and thanked Ishaq Dar and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for supporting province’s position.

Bugti criticised the decision by private media houses to shut down their bureau offices in Baloc­histan, saying journalists in the province were already working under extremely difficult circumstances amid threats from militants, separatist groups and political pressures.

Opposes closure of media houses’ bureaus in province

He said the closure of media offices would silence Balochistan’s voice in the federal capital and increase unemployment in the province.

“Balochistan makes up 43 per cent of the country. If our positive voice does not reach Islamabad, at least our concerns should. We will not tolerate this injustice,” he said.

The chief minister urged media owners to decide whether they considered themselves national media organisations or merely commercial enterprises. “If they are national media, then they should maintain bureaus at least at divisional levels across the country,” he said.

He criticised media owners and said that despite earning billions of rupees they paid local employees’ salaries as low as Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 and now they are shutting down offices in the province.

Bugti appealed to Federal Information Minister Ataullah Tarar to fulfill his commitment and ensure that no media bureau in Balochistan would be closed.

He also called on Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to play his role and pointed out that even his own media network had shut its bureau in the province.

He said that if needed, he and other lawmakers of the provincial assembly would even go to Islamabad to protest alongside journalists.

Earlier, journalists under the banner of the Balochistan Union of Jour­nalists boycotted the budget session.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2026