Unknown terrorists opened fire on Levy check post at Lal Khatti area in Ziarat Tehsil Sanjwani of Baluchistan. Six levy personnel were martyred and several others injured. Some of the injured are reported to be in critical condition. Over the past few year personnel of levy, police and security forces have been frequently targeted including high ranking police and Frontier Corps officials. A few months ago six FC officials were martyred when their convoy came under attack in Ketch district near the border with Iran.
In addition to the attacks on personnel of law enforcing agencies, railway trains are also being targeted. Four people were killed and 10 other injured when a bomb planted on a railway track went off and hit Quetta bound express train near Dera Murad Jamali in Nasieabad. Likewise, in October 2016, seven passengers were killed and 20 other injured in a twin bomb attack on Jafar Express.
Baluchistan is a resource rich province and whenever serious efforts are made to exploit these resources a wave of insurgency erupts, which is financed by the regional and world players. The current one which is going on for the last 13 years has a linkage with CPEC related mega development projects. The oppressive Bloch Chieftains who always speak about the rights of people of Baluchistan will never want the emancipation of ordinary Baluchies from the clutches of Sardary system by receiving spread effects of economic development in terms of education, health and employment facilities. The transfer of more financial resources under the 7th NFC Award did not produce the trickle down effect on common man as the ruling Sardars misappropriated bulk of the financial resources since 2010 and onwards. It is pertinent to mention that Rs. 600 million cash was recovered from the former provincial secretary finance Mushtaq Raisani alone what to speak of the ruling political elite.
After the Quetta Hospital attack, one Judge Judicial Commission of Justice Qazi Faez Esa in his report emphasised for a comprehensive national security policy on which former flamboyant federal interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali KJhan raised eyebrows. His successor in the previous PML-N government Ahsan Iqbal did not consider the judicial commission report worth consideration for the formulation of national security policy in consultation with the provincial governments, particularly the frontline provinces in war on terror, Baluchistan and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. The arrest of high profile RAW Kalboshan Jadhev from Baluchistan should have been taken seriously and the incidents should have served as catalyst for the formulation of national security policy.
The statements of certain federal minister about the implementation of National Action Plan with the cooperation of opposition parties have produced a ray of hope for working out national security plan. However, probability is there that the leaderships of opposition parties may make the ongoing across-the –board accountability process as a pretext for not extending their cooperation for the implementation of all important points of National Action Plan including about the extension in the tenure of military courts and reforming the judicial system. At the time of voting on 21st in Senate in 2015 the crying of PPP senior leader Senator Raza Rabbani said it all. It remains to be seen whether the political leadership gives preference to national interest over party affiliations.
