A strike was observed in Gwadar and other coastal cities of the province on Tuesday in response to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal\u2019s call to support the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC)\u2019s recent protests against a police crackdown and arrests of its leaders.<\/p>\n
All businesses, banks, shops and petrol pumps in the city were closed to protest against the arrests and cases registered against all BYC women leaders, including Dr Mahrang Baloch, Bebo Baloch and Sammi Deen Baloch.<\/p>\n
A similar situation was witnessed in Ormara, a city 270 kilometres away from Gwadar, where a complete shutter-down strike by the traders\u2019 association was under way. Shops were also closed in Pasni, another coastal town 142km from Gwadar.<\/p>\n
A strike observed in Pasni on Tuesday in response to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal\u2019s call \u2014 Photo by Sajid Noor
\nThis comes a day after the Karachi police detained BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch and several others during a protest against the recent arrests of BYC leadership and a crackdown on its Quetta sit-in.<\/p>\n
On Friday evening, the police used tear gas and water cannons, and fired blank shots to disperse BYC protesters, who had staged a sit-in on the Sariab Road near the University of Balochistan, against alleged enforced disappearances, including its leader Bebarg Baloch.<\/p>\n
A strike observed in Pasni on Tuesday in response to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal\u2019s call \u2014 Photo by Sajid Noor
\nThe Balochistan government and the BYC had reported casualties on their sides as a result of each other\u2019s actions \u2014 with the activist group claiming three dead and 13 others suffering injuries and the police saying around 10 of their personnel were hurt.<\/p>\n
The situation further escalated when BYC chief organiser Mahrang Baloch was arrested in the early hours of Saturday and was booked under terror charges along with 150 others.<\/p>\n
Responding to BYC\u2019s call, shutter-down strikes had been staged over the weekend in various cities of Balochistan \u2014 including Quetta, Panjgur, Kalat, Turbat, Mastung, Kharan, Chaghi, Dalbandin and Dhadar.<\/p>\n
Separately, BNP-M president Sardar Akhtar Mengal announced a long march on March 28 against the arrest of BYC leaders.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, Mengal said, \u201cI announce a long march from Wadh to Quetta, against the arrest of our daughters and the desecration of our mothers and sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will lead this march myself, and invite all Baloch brothers and sisters, young and old, to join us in this march,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He also wrote: \u201cThis is not just a matter of the arrest of our daughters, it is a question of our national dignity, our honour, and our very existence. We will not remain silent until our mothers, sisters, and daughters are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A strike was observed in Gwadar and other coastal cities of the province on Tuesday in response to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal\u2019s call to support the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC)\u2019s recent protests against a police crackdown and arrests of its leaders. All businesses, banks, shops and petrol pumps in the city were closed to protest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7381,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions\/7381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}