Thiruvananthapuram, (Samajweekly) Chairperson of the Baloch People’s Congress and a leader of the Balochistan resistance movement, Prof Naela Quadri Baloch has said that Pakistan is facing the worst civil war and that the Pakistani Army had lost more than 190 of its soldiers after an ambush by the Balochistan resistance forces.
Naela Quadri, who is also the president of the World Baloch Women’s Forum, was speaking at a Webinar, “Recent Developments in Balochistan”, organised by the Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a think tank based out of Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
The Baloch leader said that the people of Balochistan were facing extreme torture at the hands of the Pakistani armed forces. Prof Naela Quadri Baloch said that girls are picked up at random and are raped and in some cases, the mutilated dead bodies of these girls are recovered from fields and uninhabited places.
The senior Baloch leader, who is one of the leading international voices of the Balochistan movement and living in exile in Canada, said that forced disappearances are taking place on a daily basis in Balochistan. Naela Quadri said that according to the information compiled by various groups connected to the Balochistan movement, more than 55,000 people are missing and that the Pakistani Army are arresting innocent people and torturing them in their torture cells and killing them, and dropping the dead bodies at will. She said that Pakistan was a failed state and that in Sindhudesh also movements have erupted against the Pakistani Army.
Prof Naela Quadri Baloch said that the Balochistan people are strong and have resilience and will to fight against the better equipped Pakistani Army and after the 190 casualties of its personnel, the army has increased the torture of the Baloch people. She, however, said that the Pakistan Army is not walking through a rosy patch and that Baloch people will not sit in silence facing the attack by the ‘rogues’ in the Pakistani Army.
Coming down heavily on China, she said that China is trying to totally take over places in South Balochistan, and for that, they are pressuring the Pakistani government to divide Baloch province into North and South Balochistan. She said that the people of Balochistan would never allow such a bifurcation.
Prof Naela Quadri also said that several young, educated youths of Balochistan, who used to take classes for those children who are not going to schools, have been rounded up by the Pakistani Army and all of them are missing.
She said, “The Pakistani establishment does not want the Baloch people to get educated and routinely pick up our people who are highly educated and helping our children.”
The leader also said that the Baloch people would continue their natural fight for justice until the goal is achieved. She said that the Indian government was also not actively supporting the Baloch cause and wanted the people of India to be proactive in the matter.
Munir Mengal, President of Baloch Voice Association and based out of Paris while addressing the webinar said that there was no justice in Pakistan and added that people are routinely getting killed due to the failure of the judiciary. Munir, who also represents the Baloch people in international forums including the United Nations, said that for the past couple of years, UN meetings have come reduced due to the Covid pandemic and have heavily affected the momentum of the cause.
C. Rajeev, Director, Centre for Policy and Development Studies was the moderator of the webinar.
