KARACHI, Jan 7: Speakers at a rally held here on Sunday strongly condemned the continued detention of Sardar Akhtar Mengal, chief of the Balochistan National Party, and demanded his immediate release.

They expressed concern over the wellbeing of 15 other people picked up along with the Sardar by law-enforcement agencies as there has been no word about their whereabouts since then.

Participants of the rally, staged outside the Karachi Press Club under the auspices of the BNP-Mengal’s Karachi chapter, were holding banners and placards in their hands and raising slogans against the government for pursuing, what they termed ‘anti-democracy policies’.

A central leader of the BNP Hameed Sajna slated ‘victimisation’ of Baloch nationalists by the government, pointing out that Baloch activists were being kidnapped and kept in detention camps set up by the government agencies illegally at secret places. However, he warned, such repressive measures would never succeed in deterring Baloch nationalists from carrying forward their mission of achieving national rights for the Baloch nation through their ongoing struggle.

The others who addressed the rally included Nizam Baloch and Mushtaq Baloch.

Meanwhile, the family Gowaram Saleh, a Baloch activist allegedly picked up by government agencies in August 2004, continued their token hunger-strike outside the KPC to press for his immediate release.