Our priority is finding missing persons, not elections: Mengal

Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader Sardar Akhtar Mengal on Thursday urged for early recovery of the missing persons in Balochistan, saying “our priority is the recovery of missing persons and not elections.”
Talking to reporters after appearing in the Supreme Court (SC), Mengal said that due to the issue of missing persons, the people of Balochistan had lost faith in all institutions of the country, except the judiciary. He said that every family in Balochistan was struck with the grief of their missing relatives. He said the missing persons were not the sons of Sardars but ordinary political workers. He demanded punishment for those responsible for abduction.
He said the representatives of Baloch people were labeled as traitors whenever they tried to raise voice for people’s rights. He said Baloch leaders were being held responsible for poverty in the province, while asking who was responsible for the crimes of the last 60 years. He called for similar laws for Quetta and Rawalpindi. He said the problems of Balochistan could not be understood by sitting in Islamabad. He said the province was burning but there was no one to sprinkle water.
Hinting at separation from Pakistan, Mengal said: “It is better to get divorce in a peaceful manner rather than a bloody divorce.” He said that the people of East Pakistan were more patriotic but the attitude meted out to them forced them to get separation. He said the government was blaming “foreign hand” in Balochistan due to its own failures. He asked if India was bent on dismembering Pakistan, why was it being given the most favored nation status.
He said that every government shed “crocodile’s tears” but did nothing to resolve the problems of Balochistan. He said that even in the democratic era, the real rulers were the ones in uniform. He said that “death squads of intelligence agencies” were working in the province, and the people of Balochistan were being punished for the crimes they had not committed.