ISLAMABAD: The Baloch students of Islamabad and Rawalpindi held a protest demonstration today in front of the National Press Club, Islamabad, to condemn the cold-blooded targeted killings of Maula Baksh Dashti, a senior nationalist politician and Central Committee member of the National Party, and Habib Jalib Baloch, a prominent Baloch nationalist and central General Secretary of the Balochistan National Party.

The Baloch students were joined by left-wing political activists and students, and chanted slogans condemning the continuing assassinations of Baloch political workers. The protestors expressed their anger at the state’s inability to provide security to its citizens and even to prominent leaders who have fallen prey to targeted killings consistently over the last few years in Balochistan.

Despite the repeated promises made to the Baloch people by the current government, the assassinations, torture and abductions of Baloch political workers, students, and ordinary citizens has continued unabated, they said. The protestors accused the security establishment of deliberately creating mayhem in Balochistan in order to suppress the Baloch national movement.

The Baloch students vowed to continue their peaceful struggle for the rights of the Baloch people and to exercise their democratic rights regardless of the efforts being made by the establishment to create divisions and confusion within the movement.

Left-wing political workers present at the occasion expressed their dismay at the civil-war like situation unfolding in Balochistan and demanded that the state immediately withdraw its repressive military apparatus from Balochistan and urgently reconsider its ‘strong center’ policy which has brought the country to the brink of yet another 1971-like situation.

Activists of Workers Party Pakistan and National Students Federation (Punjab) were also present at the protest demonstration.