GILGIT, March 2: Two activists of nationalist parties of the Northern Areas were arrested on Tuesday for not appearing before a court in a sedition case.

Those arrested were named as Balawaristan National Front (BNF) worker Nafees and Karakoram National Movement (KNM) leader Ghazi Anwer.

Arrest warrant of the BNF chairman and a member of the Gilgit-Baltistan National Alliance (GBNA), Naji, has been issued for his prolonged absence from a regional court in which a case is pending against him, police sources said.

BNF sources said political workers were being intimidated and victimized by the government for struggling against the bureaucratic rule in the region as well as for the political and democratic rights of people of Gilgit and Baltistan.

They added that government had not been happy with the BNF policy since the inception of the party and its leaders had been sent to jail many times because the BNF demanded independence from the rule of Islamabad.