The people of Balochistan oppose the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) alleging that China wants to build and raise its empire in Gwadar. They say that the Pakistani army is bringing demographic changes by shifting thousands of residents of Balochistan by force along the CPEC route to other places.
It, perhaps, was the most appropriate time for the Baloch rebels, when the chief of the army staff, Qamar Javed Bajwa, was in Pentagon, and Imran Khan with his cabinet ministers in Beijing pleading for more funds to be used for the repression of Balochistan, to give a strong message to the Pakistani establishment.
The initial reports indicate that a number of helicopters, believed to be four, were downed and more than 100 army men were killed. Pakistan so far has confessed to only 12 casualties or so. Amjad Ayub Mirza, a London-based supporter of an independent Balochistan, has confirmed the downing of at least one helicopter and appealed to the democracy-loving people to thwart the ongoing exploitation of Balochistan by a mafia-type China-Pakistan nexus.
He has also dismissed the Pakistani allegation that India is behind the attacks which had taken place in Panjgur and Nushki in Balochistan province.
India, however, is blamed, maybe rightly, for abandoning the nationalists of the region. It is on record that the then Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru had turned down an offer by the “King” or Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmadyar Khan to accede to India. It is intriguing if Nehru could accept two wings of Pakistan, why did he not accept, Balochistan and the present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , the land of the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, who never accepted Pakistan. As per his wishes, he was cremated in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, instead of being buried in a land under the occupation of the British proxy, Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the rebel leaders are keenly watching the political developments in Pakistan and hope that the removal of Imran Khan might get them relief. They remember that Maryam Nawaz during her visit to Balochistan had raised the human rights issue, especially regarding the graves of mass burials, the young men killed by the army, but it is not clear whether their exploitation would really end with the change of regime in Islamabad. The recently held lunch of the leaders of Pakistan’s main opposition parties, Pakistan Muslim League-Noon (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and how democracy returns to Pakistan is being keenly observed by the pro-democracy people within the country as well as abroad. The high-profile luncheon, which included former President Asif Ali Zardari and his son, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, with PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif and vice president Maryam Nawaz appears to have reinvigorated the Pakistan Democratic Movement
