Mengal returned to Pakistan on 25 March 2013 after ending four years of self exile in Dubai to participate in the 2013 general elections.[5] His party only has two seats in the 51-member provincial assembly. One held by Mengal and the other by Hamal Kalmati, who represents Gwadar. Two candidates of the BNP, Esa Noori and Raouf Mengal, won National Assembly seats from the Makran coastal region and Khuzdar, respectively.[6][7] Akhtar Mengal took oath as a member of National Assembly of Pakistan on 13 August 2018.[8]
Arrest and release
Akhtar Mengal was arrested in September 2006, along with around 700 other political workers,[9] in a government crackdown in Balochistan. He was held because he was planning a long march against PresidentPervez Musharraf's military rule. Mengal was released on May 9, 2008[10] and all charges against him were dropped by the Government of Sindh. The Balochistan government withdrew all cases, including those of sedition, against Mengal.[11][12]
Akhtar Mengal has been historically criticised by the Baloch insurgents as well as the security establishment.[14] In an interview in 2013, he lamented that, “The Baloch militants consider me a traitor while the security establishment also treats me as an enemy."[14] He is an elder of various such influential families who have their members on both sides of the political divide.[15] Currently a part of the Pakistan Democratic Movement[16] (a 13-party coalition currently in power at the federal level), the association of his brother and nephews with the Baloch Liberation Army[14] has long been an obstacle to his entry into the mainstream national politics. Javed Mengal (brother) and Nooruddin Mengal and Bhawal Mengal (nephews) have allegedly been involved[14] in armed militancy in the restive province of Balochistan. However, Akhtar Mengal has condemned the insurgents and publicly called for a political solution to the myriad problems in the province.[14]