Sardar Akhtar Mangal, Baluchi nationalist and leader of the Balochistan National Party, has said that use of force by the Pakistan Army will not cause Baluchis to drop their quest for their rights, according to an Urdu-language daily.
“The Baluchi nation is well aware of the double-standards of the [Pakistani] rulers and will never shed their demand for autonomy. They could never be forced to drop their demands,” he said, according to a report in the Urdu-language daily Roznama Islam.
Mangal added that anti-Baluchi policies have continued for decades under both the rule of the Pakistani army and democratic governments.
A low-scale insurgency is going on in Baluchistan for the province’s independence from Pakistan. The demands of Baluchi nationalist leaders vary from independence to some sort of autonomy within Pakistan.
Source: Roznama Islam, Pakistan, March 8, 2010
