KARACHI, Dec 17: Newly elected chief of the National Party (NP) Senator Dr Abdul Malik Baloch has said that his party will continue its struggle for the restoration of the Baloch people’s “self-rule” through democratic means.

Speaking to NP workers after his arrival from Quetta, he said the party had never opposed other forms of struggle for the attainment of rights but it firmly believed in a democratic process through mass mobilisation and people’s active participation in a political process. “This will weaken the autocratic regime and strengthen the forces fighting for their due rights,” he said.

Dr Malik, who replaced Dr Abdul Hayee as party chief at a recent meeting of the NP central executive body in Quetta, told the local leadership and workers that his visit to Karachi was part of the mass mobilisation campaign for the rights of the Baloch people. He said the aim of the campaign was to create awareness among the Baloch people about their rights and the right direction of the NP’s struggle.

He cautioned the party workers against getting confused by the terms “democratic struggle” and “resistance movement”, warning that certain elements were taking undue political advantage of such confusion to divide the nationalist forces on different lines.

He declared that “we have common objectives and common enemy”, although every Baloch nationalist party and group was struggling to attain the objectives by its own ways and means. He told party activists, workers and supporters to set up offices in all Baloch-dominated localities of Karachi.