Seize the hour in Balochistan

Unless the government urgently takes decisions required to redress the grievances of Balochistan, the momentum generated by measures like the release of Akhtar Mengal and Shahzain Bugti is going to be lost. The extremists in the establishment and their counterparts in the Baloch resistance are likely to foil all these attempts.

What Akhtar Mengal has said during public meetings at Hub, Khuzdar, Kalat and Quetta amounts to an invitation for reconciliation that few Balochi politicians are currently willing to extend in view of the threats from the militants in the mountains. Akhtar Mengal's courageous offer needs to be responded to with all the seriousness it deserves.

Those in Balochistan who have taken up arms advocate complete liberation and brand all those who seek the resolution of the province's grievances within a federation as the agents of Pakistan's security agencies. This has put a number of Baloch nationalists leaders on the defensive. Even killings of innocent people like that of the Vice Chancellor of Balochistan University and young cricketers in Quetta are not condemned. The victims are dubbed as spies.

It is highly courageous on the part of Akhtar Mengal to talk of reconciliation under the circumstances. He can do this on account of the prestige he enjoys as an outspoken defender of the Baloch cause and a man who has endured the wrath of the military led government in the process without flinching. He also enjoys strong tribal backing.