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Balochistan measures still to pay dividends
Pakistan?s Interior Ministry is not sure when the law and order situation in Balochistan would return to normal.
The anti-insurgency measures in Balochistan province were paying some dividends but no time frame could be given about when the law and order situation there would return to normal, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao has told the federal cabinet.
A top ministerial source told Daily Times that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had asked the minister to brief the cabinet about the situation in Balochistan and Wazrisitan, where security forces are battling tribal rebels.
As soon as Sherpao finished his briefing, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri asked him exactly when he felt that normalcy would return to Balochistan and the tribal areas as a result of the security measures taken by the interior ministry, the source said.
Sherpao replied that he could not give a timeframe as to when the situation in these areas would be brought under control.
In his briefing, Sherpao claimed that recent measures taken by the federal government had started yielding results and hopefully the situation would be brought under control soon.
He said the banning of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its classification as a terrorist organisation would help security agencies tackle the law and order situation.
He said the recruitment of local Baloch people into the Frontier Corps and other law-enforcement agencies and incentives being offered to the jobless people to weaken the power of Baloch nationalists were helping the federal government gain the support of Baloch people.
The source said Sherpao had also claimed that the operation launched against tribal chief Akbar Bugti and his followers had led to the establishment of the government's writ in those troubled areas.
