When President Balochistan National Party (BNP) Sardar Akhtar Mengal returned and decided to take part in the coming parliamentary election, he was a changed man who had put his past behind on a positive note.

This was all the more encouraging that he spurned the threat from the so-called separatist forces. Rather, he tried to convince the disgruntled elements to come down the hills and join the struggle of securing the rights of Baloch people. Mengal, thus, deserved a matching response from the country's establishment to ease his way to electioneering in the restive province so strategically located and so much endowed with natural resources. This, however, was not to be so. The Baloch leader came out aggrieved for a variety of reasons.

First at a big rally in Quetta, then at a news conference and lastly at a meeting with Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Syed Munawwar Hasan on Monday, the Baloch leader vehemently vented his feeling of political handicaps that have arisen in his way. He talked of fear from death squads from non-state actors, which has put the life of BNP workers and candidates in danger. He has sent a letter in this regard to the Election Commission of Pakistan seeking its indulgence by providing them adequate security. He said he sent to the CEC strong evidence regarding the death squads which roamed around in the constituency in luxurious and smuggled vehicles, with tinted glasses and most of these suspected vehicles had no registration number plates.

It is a matter of great concern for the people of Pakistan in general and the people of Balochistan in particular that a party which is inclined to play a positive role in the country's polity should feel harassed. But the non-state actors, about whom Mengal talked, seem bent upon meting out a treatment which he does not deserve. This must be kept in mind that his is the only voice among nationalists that speaks for Pakistan, wants to join mainstream politics and is trying to help the people of Balochistan who have excessively been wronged in the past. This province was politically and socio-economically exploited and discriminated against. This area-wise largest provinces is the most backward region in Pakistan because of such treatment.
Dictator Pervez Musharraf added to Baloch people's agony by patronizing political dwars to raise them to new political heights to drive genuine leadership to the wall. This mounted pressure on nationalist forces and the BNP forced them to boycott the 2008 elections. Now that Mengal's party is all poised to contest the May 11 election, anti-Pakistan forces want to ruin his ambitions to struggle for the rights of the Baloch people. What these forces want is that normalcy should never return to this province so that they are able to fulfill their evil designs. This is no secret that Americans and Indians eye the strategic Gwadar port, a trade corridor to Central Asian Republic, by establishing China-specific establishments in the Arabian Sea. Akhtar Mengal's bold decision to participate in the next parliamentary elections despite threats, must be appreciated although he might himself be waiting for the day Gwadar port becoming functional and the windfalls in the wake of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline running through the province that has the potential of changing the lives of Pakistanis but in particular of Baloch people.

It is, however, obvious for every political leader who feeling the pain of the plight of his people, to dream for better days for the masses. The immediate concerns of PNP chief are the recovery of missing parsons and end to finding bullet-riddle bodies. Mengal talking of these issues said these concerns fundamental rights of the people; this must come an end now. Look at his worrying tone of looking for "other options" to understand how sensitive the matter is."We are making hectic efforts to contain the fire from spreading further. But those responsible for it are not interested to extinguish it. Our adversaries want that the BNP workers should not come out of their homes and participate in the free and fair elections for fear of death squads," Mengal lamented. He only wants peaceful holding of elections in the province and the caretaker administration is under a constitutional obligation to ensure an even-handed peaceful environment. In a related development caretaker interior minister Malik Mohammad Habib Khan has surely landed himself in the middle of a political storm when during an interview he allegedly gave an uncalled for pro-Nawaz Sharif statement making almost all mainstream political parties, including the PPP, the PTI, the MQM and the ANP, to react sharply seeking his removal. Habib Khan during an interview said that Nawaz Sharif is the only true national leader and that he had been voting for the PML-N in the past. President Asif Ali Zardari and the caretaker prime minister must take serious notice of the minister's personal political whims at a time when he is in charge of security of all political parties.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/