* BNP leader clams police killing Baloch gangs fighting amongst themselves
By Amar Guriro
KARACHI: The Baloch is fighting the Baloch in Lyari - they are being killed from three sides, the two gangs are killing each other and the police are killing them, said recently freed Balochistan National Party leader Akhtar Mengal to scores of hundreds of people who turned up to hear him in the scarred neighbourhood.
“I personally request them to immediately stop fighting and to come forward to fight for the Baloch cause,” said Mengal in their language at the famous Kakri Ground. Lyari, one of the poorest of Karachi’s neighbourhoods, has been torn apart by the gang war between the Arshad Pappu and Rehman Dakait groups, both of Baloch descent.
The former chief minister of Balochistan also condemned the violence of May 12, 2007 in which political activists were killed during skirmishes. “Who blocked the roads from the airport to the high court,” he said. “They were not Sindhis wearing the Ajrak or the Baloch but were educated urban people. Whenever a Baloch kills anyone, he informs the family of the whereabouts of the body. But I hear they are throwing bodies in gutters.”
Reiterating his stance that the government must stop its atrocities before the Baloch would agree to talks, Mengal said that the army operation and the hundreds of missing people had to be tackled first. The Baloch were being forced to migrate to Karachi under these conditions. “After my release whenever I go somewhere, a mother comes to me with the plea that I help find her missing son,” he said.
Mengal stressed that not a single Baloch was against development but when development was associated with someone’s vested interests they would not agree. “They [the rulers] always allege that the three sardars (chieftains) in Balochistan are against development, but let me ask why the rulers aren’t initiating development projects in the rest of the Balochistan? Which Sardar is forcing the rulers to stop the development of Lyari? If the rulers are really concerned for the Baloch people then first they must develop Lyari.”
He disclosed that over the year and a half they had discovered he had become diabetic.
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