QUETTA, June 10: There will be no let-up in Balochistan National Party’s struggle for the securing the rights of Balochistan, says Sardar Akhtar Mengal, chief of his own faction of the BNP.

Addressing a large public meeting here late on Monday night, he said people raising slogans in favour of the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) were disruptive elements. He warned them that when the “800,000-strong army cannot make me bow to them, you cannot hope to dictate to me”.

He said he could not understand why these elements, who had created trouble during the jirga of Baloch tribal chiefs in Kalat last year, did not interrupt the jirga addressed by President Pervez Musharraf.

Supporters of the banned organisation tried twice to interrupt the proceedings and came close the dais chanting pro-independence slogans, but BNP workers pushed them out of the stadium where some people fired in the air. However, the meeting continued.

Sardar Mengal said that the BNP was neither frightened by the usurpers nor would it compromise on sacrifices rendered by Nawab Akbar Bugti and Nawabzada Balaach Marri.

He said that as army chief President Musharraf was “very arrogant” and threatened to annihilate the Baloch leadership, but now things were different.

“Today, thousands of people are here … but the man who had once been a dictator is living a life in isolation.”

Sardar Mengal said that nations could not be enslaved by weapons, adding that the current military operation was the fifth in Balochistan since 1958.

“Sophisticated weapons have failed to suppress the political movement of the Baloch people.”