QUETTA: Citing ‘serious reservations among Baloch people’ about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, chief organiser of his own faction of the National Party, has said that they fear being converted into a minority in their own Gwadar city.

Talking to reporters on Tuesday, he alleged that the rulers were deliberately alienating the Baloch people in their pursuit of plunder of the resources of their province.

He said that it was a matter of concern that the rulers of Balochistan were looting the province along with others instead of developing it.

People of Gwadar, he said, were being deprived of their land through illegal allotment in the name of the project. People of the area were facing a host of problems, including lack of drinking water, while Islamabad was giving an impression to the world that Balochistan would be developed once CPEC was implemented, he said.

The veteran Baloch leader said CPEC was not beneficial to the Baloch people as they had not received any benefit from the Gwadar port so far.

Dr Baloch said the federal government was keeping everything secret and not making public the details of the CPEC agreement it had signed with China. Neither was there any clarity as to what benefit the people would avail after the implementation of the project, he said.

He also said that the country would only progress if it normalised it ties with its neighbours. Pakistan was drifting towards isolation, he said and added that it should make efforts for restoring normal relations with its neighbours, for peace and prosperity.

Published in Dawn November 30th, 2016