Pakistan army regular troops, Frontier Corps militiamen and police have launched a massive crackdown and arrested more than 200 people from Killi Qambrani and Sariab Road areas of capital Quetta and other parts of Occupied Balochistan, three days ahead of Balochistan's national independence day on August 11.
Balochistan patriots are celebrating their independence day on August 11, while they plan to burn Pakistan flags in the length and breadth of Balochistan on August 14.
Britain granted Balochistan independence separately from Pakistan on August 11, 1947 while Pakistan got its independence on August 14 and India on August 15.
According to Quetta Police, the crackdown was launched in retaliation for the killing of a police station house officer, his driver and bodyguard in Quetta.
Baloch sources in Quetta told this scribe Wednesday that the Pakistani occupation troops forced their way into their homes Monday-Tuesday midnight, smashing doors and looting everything. They dragged the male members out of their houses and subjected them to severe beating at the time of their arrest.
In the past several years, scores of people were forcibly disappeared from Killi Qambrani and Saryab Road areas and later their badly tortured, bullet-ridden bodies were found dumped in deserted areas of Balochistan.
The pro-independence Baloch National Front has condemned the mass arrests and said it was a crude attempt of Islamabad to stop the Baloch people from celebrating their Independence day and foil their protests August 14.
Local residents put the number of those arrested at more than 200. The DIG police, Shakeel Ahmed Tareen, told BBC Urdu that 159 people have so far been arrested and the operation was still continuing.
The mass arrests show a discriminatory attitude by the government towards the Baloch, reported Daily Times.
The DC-based American Friends of Balochistan condemned the extra judicial arrests of Baloch civilians and said state terrorism and brutalities would not stop the Baloch from struggling for the independence of their homeland.
The A.F.B. said it fears those arrested would be executed.
Pakistan military has more than 60,000 troops posted in Balochistan, while there are more than 40,000 Frontier Corps para-military soldiers.
Pakistani soldiers are conducting the same kind of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, they had previously conducted in the former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh , in 1971.
Balochistan was invaded and annexed by Pakistan at gunpoint on March 27, 1948.
http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-baltimore/massive-crackdown-quetta-ahead-of-balochistan-independence-day?CID=examiner_alerts_article
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