QUETTA – National Party Secretary-General Mir Tahir Bizenjo made it clear that inclusion of Afghan refugees in the population census would not be acceptable to Baloch people.
Speaking at a reference held to honour nationalist leader late Mir Abdul Aziz Kurd for his services and sacrifices for Baloch cause the other day, he warned that it would cause demographic imbalance in Balochistan, as hundred of thousands of Afghans, living in the province for the last three decades, had already changed the local demography and badly affected the politics, economy, agriculture and trade of Balochistan.
The former senator said exclusion of Afghan refugees from the process was a unanimous demand of the people, adding that their inclusion was also against national and international laws. He said a transparent census would benefit the local ethnic groups like Baloch, Pashtoon and Hazara.
He said without the rehabilitation of these internally displaced persons (IDPs), the whole exercise would not be acceptable to the Baloch people.