QUETTA, Dec 2: Leader of the Balochistan National Party (Mengal group) Sardar Akhtar Mengal has accused intelligence agencies of falsely implicating nationalists in bomb blasts incidents occurring in various parts of the province.

Terming it an attempt to sideline nationalists against major projects, he said that members of nationalist parties had subsequently been implicated in these cases.

Speaking at a programme arranged by the Turbat press club at the end of the party's executive committee meeting, he denied the involvement of the political activists in any kind of extra-constitutional action and said that the Baloch people were patriotic and they enjoyed the support of the masses to carry on peaceful struggle to attain their national rights.

Sardar Mengal said that intelligence agencies were trying to defame nationalists by apprehending political workers to implement what he termed the government's anti-Baloch development programme.

He said that dubbing nationalists anti-state or implicating them in bomb blast incidents would not force them to abandon their struggle against usurpers looting resources without the local people's consent.

"The completion of Gwadar port and other major development schemes would a population imbalance as influx of thousands of outsiders settling in Gwadar would turn the native people into minority," he said.

Sardar Mengal said that initially exploiters had been unable to comprehend the logic behind the construction of the Mirani dam and reminded that earlier their request for the dam's construction had been rejected and the project labelled impracticable. He said that after the beginning of the Gwadar port project, they were going ahead with the same dam.

The former chief minister said that nationalists were not against progress but patriotic Balochs were against development programmes that would diminish their national identity, culture and language.

He said that the party's executive committee had reaffirmed the struggle against major projects, the establishment of cantonments, excesses of the Frontier Corps and Coast Guards, denial of jobs to Baloch youths in federal services and corporations and unlawful detention of political workers. He supported the Ponam's demand to frame a new constitution and contended that it did not protect the national rights of Balochs, Pukhtuns, Sindhis and Seraikis.