ISLAMABAD: Members of the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat will undertake a visit to Quetta next week to receive briefings on the implementation status of the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan Package (AHBP).

According to the agenda of the two-day meeting issued by the Senate Secretariat, the committee will have “a detailed discussion on the status of the implementation of the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan Package with particular reference to the role of the provincial government”.

The meeting will take place at the office of the chief secretary.

The committee headed by Kalsoom Parveen of the Balochistan National Party-Awami will arrive in Quetta on Feb 20 and the next day it will meet Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch who will brief the senators, most of them from Balochistan, on the matter.

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The committee comprises Yousuf Badini, Saifullah Magsi, Baz Mohammad Khan, Saifullah Khan Bangash, Kamil Ali Agha, Mushahidullah Khan, Talha Mehmood, Humayun Khan Mandokhel, Syeda Sughra Imam, Rubina Khalid, Najma Hameed and Dr Saeeda Iqbal.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Aftab Sheikh is expected to accompany the committee as minister in charge of the Cabinet Secretariat since the portfolio lies with the prime minister.

The AHBP with an offer of dialogue to Baloch dissidents suggests a number of constitutional, political, administrative and economic measures to be taken with an aim to remove the sense of deprivation among the people of province.

Since announcement of the package in 2009 that had unanimously been approved by parliament, a number of political leaders mainly from Balochistan have been complaining that it is not being implemented in letter and spirit.

The Balochistan chief minister has also acknowledged that so far there had been no progress in the talks with those Baloch nationalists who had taken up arms against the state.

The Baloch senators have always been found agitating in the Senate over the non-implementation of the AHBP.

The package says the government is “conscious that the provinces have a sense of deprivation in the political and economic structures of the federation” and that the provisions of the 1973 Constitution related to federation-province relations were circumvented in the past.

It talks about giving provincial autonomy to Balochistan and recommends that the construction work for cantonments at Sui and Kohlu in Bugti and Marri areas should be halted for the time being and the military be withdrawn to be replaced by the Frontier Corps.

The package also addresses the issue of missing people. It says the list of missing persons would be investigated and if found in custody they would be released.

The government has also assured that there would be no political victimisation. Among other things, it has called for an inquiry by the superior judiciary into the murders of Akbar Bugti and Baloch political workers and incidents of targeted killing in the province.

Published in Dawn February 16th , 2015

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