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Islamabad: Baloch nationalist leader and head of Balochistan National Party (BNP) Sardar Akhtar Mengal was freed yesterday ending months' detention after cases against him were withdrawn under the national reconciliation agenda of Pakistan's elected government.
Mengal, a former chief minister in the southern mineral-rich province, was arrested last year and was facing a string of charges including treason registered against him in Balochistan as well as in Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.
He was released from a Karachi hospital where he had been under treatment for weeks under police custody. Party workers, relatives and friends thronging the hospital gave him a rousing welcome as he walked out a free man.
Last week the Balochistan High Court acquitted him. Earlier, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, making his first visit to the province after assuming office, had ordered his release and also announced halting military operations in the troubled province.
'No deal'
The cases in Sindh were later withdrawn and the judicial process completed, paving the way for his release, hailed by BNP as a "gift of the country's new government to people of Balochistan".
In brief remarks to reporters amid celebratory commotion at the hospital, Mengal said he and his party would continue to struggle for the rights of Balochistan people.
"There has been no change in our policy... we will continue to struggle for the rights of our people," a visibly emotional Mengal told reporters minutes after his release at Liaquat National Hospital.
Mengal, who was swarmed by television and print media reporters, demanded that all the "arrested and missing" Baloch prisoners should immediately be freed.
"There is no word as 'deal' in the dictionary of Baloch people," he said answering a question. "My release is not the result of a deal."
On the contentious issue of the multi-million dollar Gwadar Port, he said it belonged to the Baloch people. The government has built this port in an attempt to revitalise the stagnant economy of Balochistan - the most backward province of the country. But many Baloch politicians are opposed to this project, saying that it will make locals a minority.
The province, which has the country's main gas fields and installations at Sui, has been plagued by a low-intensity insurgency that officials say mainly involves members of an outlawed group calling itself Balochistan Liberation Army. The killing of Baloch tribal leader and former Balochistan governor Nawab Akbar Bugti in military action in August 2006 had inflamed Baloch sentiments.
The new government led by the Pakistan Peoples Party has vowed to resolve Baloch people's grievances and find solutions to problems through a process of conciliation and dialogue. PPP also heads the provincial government in Balochistan, which is pursuing these efforts. PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari recently made a public apology to the people of Balochistan over past injustices.
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