Members of the Balochistan National Party Mengal (BNP-Mengal) organized a demonstration at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Khuzdar to protest alleged electoral malpractices during the Wadh tehsil by-elections. The protest was led by party leader Akhtar Mengal, accompanied by key party figures, female supporters, and numerous party affiliates. The demonstrators also disrupted traffic by blocking major roads in Khuzdar and Wadh.
During the protest, Akhtar Mengal accused the local election authorities of bias, alleging that the presiding officer in Wadh favored his rival, Shafiq Mengal. He demanded the officer’s replacement, claiming that the intelligence agencies were backing Shafiq Mengal, similar to their previous support for political figures Anwar ul-Haq Kakar and Sarfaraz Bugti. Akhtar Mengal asserted his party’s strong influence in the region and questioned the likelihood of Shafiq Mengal’s victory, given his father’s previous electoral defeats in that constituency.
Akhtar Mengal criticized the Pakistani intelligence agencies’ alleged efforts to install Shafiq Mengal in power. He said that if the intelligence agencies are so desperate to bring Shafiq Mengal into the assembly, they should have him wear an abaya (a head to toe covering that Muslim women usually wear) or have him married to a Hindu. That way, he will be eligible for the seats reserved for women and the minorities in the Balochistan Assembly, respectively.
Shafiq Mengal is widely regarded as an ally of the Pakistani intelligence in Balochistan and is implicated in serious allegations, including leading a ‘death squad’ involved in enforced disappearances, murders, kidnappings for ransom, drug trafficking, and other grave offenses. He is also linked to the discovery of mass graves in Tootak in 2014, where at least 169 bodies were found, as well as attacks on Levies forces in Khuzdar and a suicide bombing in Sindh.
Despite sharing a clan, Shafiq Mengal and Akhtar Mengal have a longstanding feud, which escalated into armed conflict last July, disrupting traffic on the highway to Karachi. A ceasefire was brokered by former chief minister Aslam Raisani, but hostilities resumed briefly in September.