ISLAMABAD: After months of clashes in Balochistan’s Wadh area, the two warring factions of the Mengal tribe have arrived in the capital and accused each other of operating death squads and enjoying state patronage.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, pitched a protest camp outside the Parliament House while the rival faction held a press conference on Monday.

The party had planned to hold the sit-in camp at the National Press Club but was not allowed by the Islamabad administration.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Mengal said that the support for non-state actors “was a wrong policy and has never been successful”. He also accused caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bughti of operating a private militia ‘Aman Lashkar’ in Dera Bugti.

Mengal accuses state of supporting private militias; rival calls BNP-M leader ‘Indian agent’

He alleged these armed groups were not only being supported by the state but had been given a carte blanche to eliminate political workers, writers, poets and workers in Balochistan.

While lamenting ‘serious’ law and order situation in Wadh, he accused rival Shafiq Mengal of creating bloodshed in Khuzdar through his group, the Jhalawan Awami Panel.

He sympathised with PTI chairman Imran Khan and said PTI workers “have the right to choose their leader”.

Also, the BNP-M chief said the issue of ‘missing persons’ had to be addressed by the state, and all those involved in any criminal activity should be tried as per law.

“We appeal to the chief justice to intervene in the case of missing persons,” he said and demanded to make public the report of the Missing Persons Commission submitted to the Islamabad High Court in February.

The sit-in was also attended by BNP-M lawmakers, lawyers, civil society members and family members of missing persons.

Leaders of other political parties also visited the camp to express solidarity with the protesters.

PPP’s Senator Raza Rabbani slammed the Islamabad administration for not allowing the protest outside the Press Club.

A day earlier, police used force to disperse a pro-Palestine rally, and now a political party was not allowed to hold a protest at the Press Club, the PPP leader said.

Expressing solidarity with the protestors, ex-MNA and National Democratic Movement chairman Mohsin Dawar said the law and order situation was deteriorating across the country, except Punjab.

He claimed various armed groups “have established their autonomous domains in several parts of KP, Balochistan and the katcha areas of Sindh”.

“We fear that it was being done to influence the upcoming elections.”

He said the issue of missing persons was raised several times in front of former prime ministers Imran Khan and Shahbaz Sharif, “but they said it was not their domain”.

‘Agents of Indian establishment’

Later, Mir Nadeemur Rehman, a central leader of the Jhalawan Awami Panel, held a press conference and accused his rival of being an agent of the Indian establishment.

Mir Nadeem claimed Baloch nationalist leaders “were bagging money belonging to the people of Balochistan”, and they were also aligned with the Indian establishment to create a law and order situation in the whole province and mainly in Khuzdar.

He claimed the only reason the BNP-M was “attacking the people of Wadh” was a fear of political defeat at the hands of Shafiq Mengal. The sardars and tribal chiefs of Balochistan have been maintaining their illegal power through force and terror, but the times have changed now, he added.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2023