QUETTA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf President Imran Khan has rejected resolving the Balochistan issue through military operations and appealed to exiled Baloch nationalist leaders to hold meaningful talks with his party to find out a political solution.
“My party believes in resolving all issues through political dialogue as military operations have never helped any country in resolving any issue,” the PTI chief said at his first public meeting in Quetta here on Friday.
The meeting at the Ayub Stadium was attended by a large number of people, including youths and women, despite heavy rain in the provincial capital.
Makhdom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Makhdom Javed Hashmi, Nawabzada Humayun Jogezai, Mir Aurangzeb Jamali and Qasim Suri addressed the public meeting.
Mr Khan said dialogue was the only way to resolve issues. He assured Baloch leaders that his party would fulfil all promises at any cost after coming to power.
“We can die, but we will never go back on our words,” Imran Khan asserted.
The PTI chief said his party would bring killers of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Bugti to justice. He said the option of military operation was adopted when politicians failed to resolve issues.
Mr Khan said that present rulers had no ability to work out a solution to the Balochistan problem.
He held PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif responsible for the situation in Balochistan, alleging he had forced nationalist parties to boycott elections in the province. Had these parties been in the assembly the situation would not have been so bad, Imran Khan contended.
Referring to the issue of missing people, he said his party had condemned disappearance of people and dumping of their bullet-riddled bodies in different parts of the province.
The PTI chief said disappearance of the people after their arrest was a crime against humanity. He called for recovery of all missing people and said they all should be produced before courts.
He said such extra-judicial and extra-constitutional acts always generated hatred among the people. Imran Khan described Nato actions in Afghanistan and the Indian army’s in occupied Kashmir as extra-judicial and against the people.
Referring to corruption, he said although Balochistan was given Rs110 billion under the National Finance Commission Award no spending was visible on the ground.
He said the youth of Balochistan could have got free education and of government jobs could have been created had this amount been spent on development projects.
“After coming to power, my party will give more development funds to Balochistan than other provinces under a special development package,” the PTI chief said.
He said these funds would be spent through local governments instead of members of provincial assemblies. The PTI would not use the Frontier Corps in Balochistan to maintain law and order, but would introduce a comprehensive police system for the purpose, he added.
He said his party would help the US government find a political solution to Afghanistan’s unrest so that US-led allied forces could withdraw from that country, but added that the PTI would never become a slave to the US.
