ISLAMABAD: Veteran politician Sardar Akhtar Mengal, leader of the Balochistan National Party (BNP), announced his resignation from the National Assembly on Tuesday, saying the people of the volatile, impoverished Balochistan province had been “consistently marginalized” and “pushed to the wall.”
Mengal’s resignation comes after over 50 people were killed in Balochistan when separatist militants attacked police stations, railway lines and highways, and security forces launched retaliatory operations, late last month. The assaults were the most widespread in years by ethnic militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich southwestern province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine. The province is Pakistan’s largest by area but its most economically backward, lagging behind the rest of the country by nearly all social and economic indicators.
“The prevailing situation in Balochistan has compelled me to take this step,” Mengal wrote in his resignation letter.
“Our province has consistently been marginalized and ignored by this House. Each day, we are pushed further to the wall, leaving us with no choice but to reconsider our roles. The lack of genuine representation in this Assembly for the people of Balochistan has left voices like mine unable to bring meaningful change.”
Mengal said attempts by the people of Balochistan to speak up for their rights or protest were met with “hostility.”
“Our people are either silenced, labeled as traitors, or worse, killed,” he said. “Under such circumstances, I find it impossible to continue in this capacity, as my presence here no longer serves any purpose for the people I represent.”
The army has recently repeatedly referred to an ethnic rights movement in Balochistan being led by young people, many of them educated women, a “terrorist proxy.” The protesters have been calling for an end to what they describe as a pattern of enforced disappearances and human rights abuses by security forces, which deny the charge.
The province is home to key mining projects, including Reko Diq, run by mining giant Barrick Gold and believed to be one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines. Balochistan is an important part of China’s $65 billion investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a wing of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.
The decades-old insurgency has continued to keep the mineral-rich province of some 15 million people poor and unstable and created security concerns around Pakistan’s plans to access untapped resources under Balochistan’s desert and mountainous terrain.
It is Pakistan’s smallest province by population and strategically located, bordering Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north. Balochistan also has a long Arabian Sea coastline in the south, not far from the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.
