ALI SUKHANVER

Have you ever been to the Capital of Balochistan Quetta? If not; you have really missed a paradise on earth with a lot of mesmerizing beauty. The kindness, the hospitality, the care and the love, enriched with innocently sincere smile of the local people simply adds to the charismatic attraction of this paradise. Moving along the Hanna Lake, at the distance of 156 Km from Quetta one reaches the beautiful Ziarat Valley, known all over the world for The Ziarat Residency. It is the place where the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah spent the last two months and ten days of his life. This wooden-structured building was constructed during the British Raj in 1892 and was originally designed as a sanatorium before being converted into the summer residence of the agent of the Governor General. On 15 June 2013, this building of great national importance was targeted with rockets. The building was nearly demolished as a result of this attack. A local policeman, Bijjar Baloch also lost his life while trying to protect the building against the terrorist’s attack. The terrorists also removed the flag of Pakistan from the monument site, replacing it with a BLA flag. Later on the Militants belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army claimed the responsibility of this cowardly attack. After the attack, thousands of local residents of Ziarat carried out a protest and chanted slogans against the BLA. One could feel an air of gloominess all over the atmosphere after the incident. That was really a moment when the real face and popularity of the so-called separatist organization in Balochistan was exposed to the world.

Everyone knows that the Baloch people had played a very active role in creation of Pakistan but there were a very few people who opposed the concept of creation of Pakistan and disagreed with the Two-Nation theory. The anti-Pakistan forces promoted, encouraged and supported rather patronized these opposing elements providing them with all possible logistic support. The BLA is also one of such foreign supported organizations. The BLA has ever been blaming the Law Enforcement Agencies of Pakistan of kidnapping and killing of innocent people of Balochistan. It has been framing the ISI and other intelligence agencies of Pakistan in the matter of the Missing Persons in Balochistan. The BLA and some other so-called ‘militant organizations’ are so many times found involved in terrorist activities against the State of Pakistan, moreover so many times they themselves claim the responsibility of different terrorist activities; the rocket-bombing on Ziarat Residency is also one of the examples. Such organizations claim that their anti-Pakistan activities are a reaction to the annexation of Balochistan with Pakistan which was, according to them, an action based on injustice and oppression. They say that they are the sub-nationalists and they represent the whole population of Balochistan and claim that everyone in Balochistan wants disintegration from Pakistan but the facts are altogether different. During the days of Pakistan movement, the people of Balochistan had been very strongly supporting the Resolution of Pakistan-1940, which envisaged ‘creation of a separate homeland for Muslim majority areas of the Sub-continent’. The people of Balochistan had always strongly opposed the plan of united India. They never wanted separation or freedom from Pakistan because they knew it well yesterday and they know it well today that Balochistan and Pakistan is one and the same thing. Those who say that they are fighting for the rights and liberty of Balochistan are nothing but miscreants playing in the hands of the foreign forces. Their only aim and objective is to repress and scare the people of Balochistan by using all brutal and inhuman techniques. These are the people who emphasize to observe the 27^th March of every year as a Black Day to commemorate the annexation of Balochistan in 1948 by ‘Pakistan’s armed forces’. The actual aim of observing this so-called Black Day is to create misunderstandings between the people of Balochistan and the law enforcement agencies of Pakistan. Fortunately this ‘Black Day’ could never gain popularity among the majority people of Balochistan. On that day, the so-called Baloch sub-nationalists appeal the Baloch people to observe complete shutter-down strikes but their appeal is heard only at a few places in far-flung areas of Balochistan. In some foreign countries the self-exiled Baloch leaders organize demonstrations which always face a severe scarcity of audience.

The People of Balochistan are very well aware of this bitter realty that those who claim to be their representative never come to Balochistan; they enjoy the ease and comfort of life in foreign lands. They know nothing about the hardships and troubles a common Baloch has to face in his daily life. Though the people of Balochistan have a frequent and common complaint of being neglected and ignored by the Federal Government but freedom from Pakistan has never been their desire or demand. They wish their leaders come back to Pakistan and do efforts for the solutions of their problems regarding health, education, employment and other basic needs of life. The government of Pakistan, the Armed Forces of Pakistan, the politicians of Balochistan, in short everyone is trying sincerely to compensate the people of Balochistan for their long time deprivations; the self-exiled so-called sub-nationalists must come back to their land and join hands with their people and the government. Protest against deprivation is neither a sin nor a crime anywhere in the world and nowhere this protest is regarded as terrorism. There is always a very clear difference between protest and terrorism. The people of Balochistan would never allow anyone to give the colour of terrorism to their protest.