QUETTA: Balochistan National Party (BNP-M) president Sardar Akhtar Mengal has sought a political solution to the issue of missing persons, saying that the problems of the province would not be resolved by building dams or the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

He was addressing a news conference at a protest camp organised by families of missing persons on Wednesday.

Sardar Mengal criticised the government for not addressing the issue of missing persons and said that nothing was being done for their recovery.

“We will not let the federal and provincial governments sit comfortably until they find these missing persons. The BNP will table a resolution in the provincial assembly regarding the issue,” he said.

BNP-M chief says Balochistan’s problems won’t be solved by building CPEC or dams

Sardar Mengal said the federal government had a year to come up with a solution to the problem, and the BNP would not sit silent during this time but consistently press the rulers to resolve the matter.

He said that missing persons should be released immediately and if they were involved in any crime, there should be an open trial against them.

“It is the responsibility of the present government to meet the mothers and sisters sitting in freezing temperatures under the open sky,” he said.

The families of missing persons also filed a petition in the Supreme Court but nothing happened, he regretted.

Apart from a list of missing persons, the BNP chief said, he had included other demands of his party on the agenda given to the federal government.

Sardar Mengal said that Mama Qadeer Baloch had travelled more than 2,000km on foot along with a group of Baloch women and men from Quetta to Karachi then Islamabad to raise voice for missing persons.

The BNP, he said, also participated in the long march and took part in all protests raising the issue. When the government was being formed, he said, political parties provided lists for ministries. “We didn’t give a list for ministries, but the BNP provided a list of the missing persons to the federal government,” MNA Agha Hassan Baloch said, adding that there was no positive response from the government till now.

Members of provincial assembly Naseer Shahwani and Ahmed Nawaz Baloch, Mama Qadeer and chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) Nasr­ullah Baloch were present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2018