QUETTA: Balochistan National Party-M President Sardar Akhtar Mengal has said that all people of Balochistan, regardless of their ethnicity and language, have equal rights on the resources of the province, including its coast.

Welcoming a former provincial minister Haji Ismail Gujjar into the BNP-N fold, Mr Mengal said that there was no discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, nationality or language among the people of Balochistan and they were united in their struggle to win back their political and national rights.

He dispelled the impression there was any division among the people of Balochistan on the ground of language or ethnicity and said that all people living in Balochistan were united and the rulers had failed to divide them on these grounds.

He said that anti-people elements were pitting brothers against each other to advance their own vested interests.

The BNP-M leader claimed that those tribes and national groups which had been living in Balochistan for centuries had no differences among them.

He recalled an official notification issued by his father after being elected as the first chief minister of Balochistan in which he had declared all residents of Balochistan, regardless of their ethnic and linguistic identity, as Balochistanis having equal and non-discriminatory rights in the province.

He deplored that the administration did not implement that notification.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2018