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Speakers at a national conference organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has criticized Pakistan's spy agencies for Balochistan crisis. They said the government should curtail the role of military and intelligence agencies and call off the military operation if it wants a political solution to the festering Balochistan menace. The speakers at the conference, which was attended by local politicians, nationalist leaders, rights campaigners and lawyers, demanded that the violence in Balochistan must stop and all missing persons recovered. Rights campaigners blamed security agencies for the enforced disappearances in the province, where Baloch separatists have been fighting a deadly insurgency since 2004, reports The Express Tribune. "The army wants to exploit the resources of Balochistan and snatch the right of ownership of its people. Thousands of people have testified against the perpetrators of enforced disappearances, but no arrests have been made," said former SCBA chief and senior lawyer Asma Jahangir. "Nobody is born a separatist in Balochistan; they are born nationalists and we compel them to take that course," she said, referring to the apathy of successive governments towards the plight of Baloch people. She called for the formation of a high-powered commission to reach out to all stakeholders. Another former SCBA president Ali Ahmed Kurd said the conference would not yield results unless those responsible were made accountable for their deeds. "If the people of Pakistan don't come on the roads and oppose the oppression, as we did for the restoration of judges, nothing will change," he said. Balochistan Bar Association President Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani also lashed out at the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) for its alleged involvement in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Pak military, spy agencies blamed for Balochistan crisis