QUETTA – Political parties from Balochistan formed a coordination committee on Saturday to bring an end to the role of the establishment, particularly intelligence agencies, in political affairs.
An all-parties conference arranged by the Balochistan National Party on Saturday decided to jointly struggle for the survival of the political culture in the country, saying a new social contract was inevitable for strengthening democracy.
BNP Acting President Jahanzain Jamalidini, Awami National Party Vice President Arbab Abdul Zahir Kansi, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party’s Rauf Lala, provincial chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami Abdul Mateen Akhunzada, Hazara Democratic Party chairman Abdul Khaliq Hazara, National Party Central Vice President Dr Ishaq Baloch, Jamaat Ahle-Sunnat’s Sahibzada Iskunder Sultan and Balochistan Bar Association General Secretary Aminullah Kakar were present in the ceremony.
The leaders expressed their concern over the growing incidents of extra-judicial killings and arrests and enforced disappearances of political workers. They said the situation in Balochistan was deliberately being pushed towards anarchy. The APC said there was no writ of political government and intelligence agencies with the help of security agencies were ruling the province by the use of force.
They said state agencies never accepted the existence of nationalities in the country and always usurped their rights by exploiting the resources that caused heap of problems and complications. They said that if the establishment wanted to keep the country intact, it would have to accept the existence of nationalities and their right to rule and have control over their resources.
They said the domination of intelligence agencies over government affairs should end. At the end of the conference, a joint declaration was issued unanimously demanding the government and courts play their role in stopping torture and target killing.
The parties held the intelligence agencies responsible for target killings, calling them an effort to pit various nationalities, Baloch, Pashtun and Hazara, against each other.
