ISLAMABAD: Pakistan banned a shadowy militant group fighting for more autonomy in its restive southwestern Baluchistan province after listing it as a “terrorist” organisation, officials said yesterday. The ban on the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) came amid growing militant attacks on government installations and security forces in Pakistan’s biggest but poorest province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
The BLA has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in recent months, including the one in February in which three Chinese engineers were killed.
“Since BLA itself has claimed responsibilities for terrorist acts in Baluchistan, we have put a ban on it and declared it a terrorist organisation,” a senior interior ministry official said.
He said the activities of the group will be monitored and its source of funding and offices would be sealed.
“Each member of this organisation will remain under surveillance and he will be tried in special anti-terrorist court instead of normal one if he is found involved in any unlawful activity,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Baluch nationalist politicians criticised the move, saying it would further alienate the people of the province.
“This will create more mistrust and hatred among Baluchs towards Islamabad as it seems the central government has opened a new front against Baluch population,” said Sanaullah Baluch, secretary-general of the provincial Baluchistan National Party.
Baluch militants have been fighting for more autonomy and control over the oil and gas resources of their region for decades but they intensified their campaign over the past year.
Baluchs complain of a lack of political representation and resent their resources being used to benefit Pakistan’s other regions, most notably the populous Punjab province.
The security situation worsened in the province after a rocket attack in December when President Pervez Musharraf was visiting Kohlu town.
Set up in 1970s, BLA is the first nationalist group to be banned by Pakistan in recent years.
The government has banned several Islamist militant groups since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the US.
The government has begun to tighten the noose around three defiant Baloch chieftains to force them into renouncing aggression.
“There will be no leniency or mercy of any kind,” a senior federal official said. “Security agencies will completely wipe out terrorists in Baluchistan in a couple of months as they have zeroed in on the few troubled areas.”
The latest official revocation of arms licences issued to former Baluchistan Chief Minister Akhtar Mengal for his personal security is meant to tell him to behave.
The message is that he should not expect any soft policy from the government if his personal guards, on his orders, detain and thrash intelligence officials, who were doing their duty near his Karachi residence.
A considerable number of new criminal cases of serious nature have of late been registered against Nawab Khair Bux Marri and his sons to arraign them on terrorism charges.
One of his sons, the purported chief of the so-called Baluchistan Liberation Army, which has been claiming responsibility for sabotage and killings in the province, has been netted after he was extradited to Pakistan by the United Arab Emirates on Islamabad’s request.
The third Baluch Sardar, Nawab Akbar Bugti, is now comprehensively beleaguered and cornered by security forces in his hometown. Adding to it is the government-backed belated but welcome repatriation of more than 10,000 members of some Bugti sub-clans to Dera Bugti from where Nawab Bugti had evicted them nearly a decade ago. – Agencies |
