Labourers protest against ban on smuggled oil trade

Demonstrators threaten to launch protest across province and block RCD Highway

QUETTA: Hundreds of workers staged a protest rally in Quetta against the ban enforced by the government on the smuggling of Iranian oil and termed the measure “devastating”.

Pakistan and Iran on Friday signed an accord to jointly resolve border issues including terrorism, unlawful trade, drugs smuggling, illegal border crossing and human trafficking

The protesters carrying placards marched from Mir Gul Khan Naseer Chowk chanted slogans against the government and demanded that the business of Iranian oil be legalised.

They said that thousands of people associated with the trade had been unemployed.

“The provincial government should lift the ban on Iranian diesel business because poor labourers attached with the trade have turned jobless and are unable to win bread and butter for their children,” one of the protesters said, and added that the “ban would disturb the law and order situation in Balochisan.”

Balochistan National Party-Mengal’s (BNP-M) Central Committee member Mir Khursheed Ahmed Jamaldini, BNP-M former district president Nazeer Baloch, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI F) Hafiz Abdullah, Fidaur Rehman Rakhsani and oil union president addressed the protesters.

Earlier, Balochistan government had imposed a strict ban on the trade of Iranian diesel after Commissioner Makran Division Tariq Zehri along with his driver and gunman died in a road accident in October last year after his car collided with a vehicle carrying smuggled oil.

They also expressed concern over erecting a fence along the Iranian border and said that it would affect economic conditions of the people living in the area.

The labourers threatened to launch protests across the province and block RCD Highway if the government did not lift the ban on the trade of Iranian oil.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2020.