Will go to India for help: Baloch dissident leader Khan of Kalat
LONDON: Baloch leaders will approach India, Iran, Afghanistan or any country in their pursuit of Balochistan’s independence from Pakistan, leading dissident leader Mir Suleiman Ahmedzai said on Thursday.
Addressing a seminar in the House of Lords, Ahmedzai, the Khan of Kalat, came down heavily on Pakistan and called it a “cradle of terrorism”.
“We are a proud nation. We reject foreign domination by the Punjabis. Pakistan was allowed to occupy Balochistan historically. The international community, particularly the British crown, should help us regain our independence,” he said.
Ahmedzai said Balochistan’s independence and sovereignty was reaffirmed by British representatives on several occasions. Letters to that effect were sent to his father and grandfather.
Ahmedzai, 52, has said in the past that the Khanate of Kalat, the largest princely state in the erstwhile Balochistan Agency, was acceded to Pakistan by his grandfather in March 1948 “by the barrel of the gun”.
According to Ahmedzai, the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is considered by the Baloch as the “China Punjab Economic Corridor” as it will largely benefit the people of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province. Pakistan, he said, is terrorising its own people.
Baloch dissidents, many in self-exile in Europe, were enthused when Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of rights violations in Balochistan last year. Ahmedzai had welcomed Modi’s remarks and said India could do a lot diplomatically to address the rights abuses.