FTER spending four months in custody, and petitioning the highest court of the land, Maulana Hidayatur Rehman, leader of the Gwadar-based Haq Do Tehreek, was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Thursday. The maulana had shot to prominence in late 2021 after leading massive protests in Gwadar calling for the state to guarantee Makran`s civic rights. However, a face-off between supporters of the movement and law enforcers in December last year turned violent, and in the ensuing melee a police officer was shot dead.

It is in this case that Mr Rehman was arrested in January after he had come to court reportedly to surrender himself. In his petition to the apex court, the maulana said the allegations against him were `baseless`, and that his movement was peaceful. While the HDT leader was in custody, protests calling for his release continued in his native area, with women at the forefront, while the Jamaat-i-Islami, with which Mr Rehman is affiliated, also campaigned for his release.

The sad fact is that the issues which had sparked the HDT largely remain unaddressed. It appears that the powers that be are uninterested in examining the deeper problems that cause movements like the HDT to take shape. Mr Rehman had struck a chord by highlighting the sense of deprivation Makran`s people feel as `development` surrounds them. Unfortunately, the results of this development haven`t trickled down to the local population, as they remain deprived of many basic facilities. A similar situation persists across Balochistan, where the people of the province do not feel they are partners in progress; the province`s resources are extracted, though the people scarcely benefit. It is this sense of exploitation that gives birth to movements like HDT, that can metastasise into widespread alienation from the state. Locking out the maulana from Makran, or crushing his movement, will not make things better.

Addressing the people`s concerns is the only solution.