QUETTA, March 21: Unidentified armed men badly beat up Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, President of the National Party (NP), and two other senior leaders of the party in the Bolan Pass area while they were headed towards Nasirabad in the wee hours of Monday to address a public meeting. The armed men deprived the leaders of the NP of their cash and all other valuables. Besides, they also took their car.

According to party sources, Dr Hayee Baloch along with Dr Malik Baloch, provincial general secretary, and Dr Agha Irfan, member of the central committee, were going to Nasirabad to attend a public meeting of the party when the unidentified armed occupants, who were travelling in two vehicles, started chasing them. Around 2:00am, the unidentified armed men intercepted them and pulled them out of their car at gun point near the Pingra Bridge. They took them near the Bolan River where they started beating them up and snatched their watches, cash and other valuables. They then tied their hands and feet and escaped taking their car also.

Party sources said that the armed men told Dr Hayee that their lives were being spared even though they had been ordered to kill them. Later, the leaders of the NP managed to open their ropes and somehow reached Quetta. Press Conference: The leaders of an alliance of four Baloch parties have strongly condemned the incident in a press conference held on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, President, BNP-Mengal group; Mir Humayun Khan Marri, provincial president of the JWP, and Dr Malik Baloch alleged that secret agencies were trying to eliminate the veteran Baloch leadership.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal alleged that the incident was part of the government’s plan for eliminating Baloch leadership, and added that the government started this process when it arrested Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri along with hundreds of others in the murder case of Justice Nawaz Marri.

The leaders of the four-party Baloch alliance demanded that the armed men involved in the incident should be arrested immediately. They announced that the Baloch leadership would not withdraw from its struggle for the legitimate rights of the Baloch nation.

Senator Sana Baloch, Senator Amanullah Kanrani, Secretary General of BNP Habib Jalib, Dr Ishaq Baloch and other leaders of the four-party Baloch alliance were also present on the occasion.

DERA BUGTI: Provincial minority affairs minister J. Parkash and MPA Basint Lal Gulshan have confirmed that 18 persons of Hindu community were killed in Dera Bugti.

They said here on Monday that they were killed when a shell exploded in a temple on March 17. The last rituals of all the 18 victims of Dera Bugti, they said, were held according to the Hindu tradition.