sit-in. The victims’ families demanded of the government to take strict against the people involved in the Mastung tragedy.
Provincial Minister for Information Abdul Raheem Ziaratwal, opposition leader Maulana Abdul Waseeh and ANP parliamentary leader Engineer Zamark Khan were among the negotiating team. The opposition took control of the situation and a meeting was held at the Chief Minister’s House while CM Abdul Malik Baloch presided over the meeting.
After the meeting, Abdul Malik Baloch came out and addressed the sit-in. “We are standing with the victims’ families against the terrorists in this sad and sorrowful moment. We will be running after the terrorists in order to capture them and to punish them,” Abdul Malik Baloch said.
“We will install FC checkpoints at the Karachi-Quetta National Highway and we would like to appeal to the families to bury the dead in the light of Islamic values,” he said. —Agencies
Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik on Saturday said an All Parties Conference (APC) would be convened to discuss the Mastung killings and evolve a strategy against such incidents in future. Addressing a joint press conference with political leaders and the provincial home minister here at the CM Secretariat, he said Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif had also agreed to attend the APC that would be held in the next few days.
This APC will be Mastung incident-specific, Dr Malik said while responding to a question about previous announcement of holding an APC. The issues to be discussed in the delayed APC were different and would be discussed whenever the moot was called separately, he added. The chief minister appealed to traders and businessmen of Balochistan to keep their businesses closed on Sunday as a mark of solidarity with the families of the Mastung tragedy victims.
The chief minister Balochistan also declared three days of mourning in the province. Meanwhile Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in their separate statements have strongly condemned the terrorist attack and massacre of 20 passengers of two buses near Mastung in Balochistan and termed it cowardly and barbaric. The HRCP demanded that the killers should be brought to justice and road travel be made secure from such wanton acts of violence.