Listen to Gulzar.

A high-profile Baloch separatist leader is speaking his mind. Founder of banned BNA outfit, Gulzar Imam, alias Shambay, who was arrested last month, regrets his taking up of arms, and believes that Balochistan's rights can only be achieved through constitutional and political means. This is a welcome gesture from a hardcore militant, and one hopes that his comrades on the run will take a cue from his new-found realisation. His call for laying down arms to other insurgents was backed with some deep thinking, as he said, '...we started this war without understanding the state' and that the 'armed war further complicated' the desolated province's problems rather than resolving them.

Gulzar now has enough time to reflect back on his past deeds, and he is doing so. This is why, while talking to the Press along with provincial authorities in his captivity, he summed up by saying it was a painful experience all those years, and regrets that he was on the wrong track. That perception is quite a valid synopsis, and dilates deeply as to how the restive province had suffered all these decades in the absence of a...