We Need Every Kind of Support From India, Says Baloch Leader Bugti

Prominent Baloch leader Brahumdagh Bugti has urged India to announce a policy to help the people of Balochistan in their fight for independence from Pakistan.

We need every kind of support from India. It is the responsibility of India as a responsible neighbour and as head of world's largest democracy to speak for the Baloch people," said Bugti, head of the Baloch Republican Party which is outlawed by Pakistan.

Bugti in an interview given from Geneva to media portal Jan ki Baat said his message to people of India is to "raise their voices for their Baloch brothers".

Bugti - grandson of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti who was killed by the Pakistani army 10 years ago - lives in Europe. The Baloch Republican Army is designated as a terrorist organization in Pakistan.

Describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reference to the Baloch struggle in his Independence Day speech as a "positive development", Bugti said his people needed "every kind of support."

In the interview he said Pakistan has been using force and violence to suppress peaceful political demands.

"20,000 Baloch political leaders, lawyers and activists have been brutally murdered. Schools and colleges have been turned into military outposts," Bugti said.

He also pointed out that people in the region have been suffering from ailments after Pakistan conducted nuclear tests. Balochistan was annexed by Pakistan in 1947 and people there resent Islamabad seeing the province as a "colony."

Watch the full interview here.