A day-long siege of the Clifton residence of the chief of Balochistan Nationalist Party (BNM), Sardar Akhtar Mengal, on Wednesday came to an end at around midnight when law-enforcement agencies arrested his two guards and a driver.

Talking to newsmen, Mr Mengal identified the arrested guards and driver as Mehboob Ali, Nasrullah and Ghulam Haider. “I offered myself for the arrest but they did not take me, instead they staged a drama by placing a day-long siege. I asked them to show an FIR but they didn’t. The police said that three people were wanted who would be taken away.”

He said that according to police, all licences of various types of weapons issued to him and his guards were cancelled by the relevant authority. He was told that the weapons issued to him stood illegal. “It is the first instance of its kind that the licences were cancelled and weapons turned illegal simultaneously. After all, the licences were issued by an authority and how these licences are cancelled all of a sudden. It can happen only in this country.”

Mr Mengal said that his party would stage protests against the arrest of the three men as they worked for him. He said that he would not abandon the struggle for the rights of Balochistan and its people.

Mr Mengals’s house was cordoned off by law-enforcement agencies in the morning and no one was being allowed to enter or leave the house.

The BNP chief was inside his bungalow and spoke to journalists on the phone. He said he was not allowed to leave the place. Police took positions on top adjoining houses while the armed guards of the BNP chief could be seen atop the tribal chief’s two adjacent bungalows.

There were 35 to 40 police mobiles, two armored personnel carriers and at least 25 vans in the evening. Intelligence personnel in civvies were also seen and all routes leading to the place were blocked with minibuses and water-tankers. Members of National Assembly and the Balochistan Assembly belonging to the BNP were also there but they were not allowed to enter the bungalows.

Police sources said that the children of the Sardar were followed by two intelligence men, later identified as Qurban and Fayyaz, as they were returning from school. The guards of the Sardar captured them and took them to the bungalow, where the two men were held hostage and allegedly beaten up. One of the intelligence man managed to make a call from his cell phone.

The two men were later handed over to the local police by Mr Mengal. The place was cordoned off soon after the release of the intelligence men. The sources said that an FIR had been registered at the Darakhshan police station by the state against Sardar Akhtar Mengal and others for kidnapping people on official duty, keeping them in solitary confinement, torturing them and interfering in their official work.

DIG Karachi Operations Mushtaq Shah, when contacted, declined to comment on the issue. 6.4.06