QUETTA: The secretary general of National Party, Jan Moha­mmad Buledi, has asked the federal and provincial governments to allow the people of border areas of Balochistan to do free trade with neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan until some alternative job opportunities are created by the government.

Speaking to participants of a sit-in in front of the office of the Kech deputy commissioner on Thursday, he said that due to restrictions on trade in border areas, the people living in areas adjacent to the border with Iran were deprived of means of livelihood and they were facing financial difficulties because of this situation as there were no government and private sector jobs available to them.

The people living in border districts of Makran have been staging the sit-in for the last several days, demanding permission for doing border trade with Iran to feed their families as no other means of livelihood were available to them.

The sit-in was led by the leader of Gwadar Ko Haq Do Movement, Maulana Hidayatur Rehman.

Mr Buledi said that as a result of long struggle under the Gwadar Rights Movement, the border matters had been shifted to the civil administration. However, he said, the civil administration was not fulfilling its commitments and the people were not being allowed to do border trade with Iran freely.

He said the National Party was with the people of Makran and it supported their demands for free trade with Iran and Afghanistan and it would continue its support till the acceptance of all demands.

“National Party’s Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and central leadership and workers are with their people on border issues and they fully support the demands of the people staging the sit-in,” he said.

Mr Buledi said that border issues which were earlier in the hands of FC had been handed over to the civil administration as a result of the struggle of the rights movement and political parties, but the civil administration was now not ready to accept the demands of the people.

He said his party expected the civil administration to take positive steps to address problems of the people of the area.

The National Party leader said Makran’s commissioner and the deputy commissioner of Ketch should take these demands seriously so that the problems of the people were solved.

“In border areas people have relations with each other. Facilities are provided to them by governments everywhere in the world,” he said.

“People living in all border areas of Balochistan, including Zamran, have relations with people living across the border in Iran and some people’s lands are also situated across the border,” he said.

The NP leader said it was very unfortunate that even after a lapse of six days, the protesters were still sitting for acceptance of their demands, which should be immediately accepted by the federal and provincial governments.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2022