Maulana Hidayatur Rehman Baloch, the leader of Gwadar rights movement and also the provincial General Secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has placed certain demands before the government, which include banning the trawler mafia, open border points in Gwadar, eliminate drug trafficking and remove unnecessary check-posts. If these demands are unmet he has threatened to close the Gwadar Port on July21 as a mark of protest against the provincial government for not fulfilling the commitment it made in April this year for ending a month-long sit-in in the port city.
Gwadar Port is a major project under the CPEC that provides China an opening to the Arabian Sea. Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo had earlier promised to rid the coast of Balochistan from the trawler mafia, open crossing points in Gwadar, eliminate drug trafficking and remove security forces’ check posts.
The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of China’s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
