ISLAMABAD, 2 December 2006 — Police yesterday arrested a number of leaders and workers of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) in various areas of the province to foil a planned long march against the detention of BNP chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal.

A number of protesters had gathered in Quetta in the morning demanding Mengal’s release. Police arrested BNP legislator Yasin Baloch and another BNP leader Akram Baloch from Quetta. After their arrest many BNP activists took to the street. They blocked Saryab Road and erected barricades on the Quetta-Karachi highway.

The protesters pelted vehicles with stones, attacked official buildings and burned tires. Police also fired tear gas after rioters torched two buses and a jeep, officials said.

Activists from the Balochistan Students Organization also erected roadblocks on a main road in Quetta and pelted passing cars with stones, senior police official Abdul Qadir Thabo told AFP.

“The police have removed all roadblocks and opened the road” after using tear gas to disperse the protesters, Thabo said.

The protests followed the arrests last week of some 50 people, including Mengal, ahead of a planned anti-government march.

The party called the march to protest army operations in Balochistan, including the killing of renegade tribal chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti in August.

Security forces also arrested seven suspected Taleban fighters in a raid in Quetta, police said yesterday.

The seven Afghan nationals were seized late Thursday at a house in Quetta, Thabo, who is the deputy inspector general of police, told AFP.

“They are Taleban fighters but there is no important commander among them,” Thabo said.

Investigators were trying to trace their origin and links with the Taleban in Afghanistan, he said.

Afghan officials charge that Taleban militants are using Quetta as base to launch attacks across the porous border. Pakistan denies the allegations.

Police said they arrested 47 suspected Taleban rebels in and around Quetta on Nov. 21. Another 50 alleged insurgents were detained in October.

Hundreds of Taleban and Al-Qaeda fugitives sneaked into Pakistan in late 2001 after the Taleban regime was ousted by US-led forces for sheltering Osama Bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Pakistan has deployed around 80,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan to hunt down Taleban and Al-Qaeda fugitives in the rugged tribal terrain.