Reports speak of the security forces using helicopter gunships to attack the camps of 'insurgents' and to search for the tribesmen alleged to be involved in subversive activities.
The Marris have also been firing rockets at the FC men, and in their latest act of sabotage on Friday they blew up a part of the railway track that links Quetta with Zahidan in Iran. The Bugti area is also tense. Bugti tribesmen and the paramilitary forces have been exchanging fire. All such activities, of course, kill people.
According to the main Opposition alliance, ARD, as of Friday more than 200 people had lost their lives and several others were injured; the government, though, has not announced any casualty figures.
The situation has caused widespread concern, as it should, in the country with some sane voices urging the government to observe restraint in the use of force and to try and resolve the Baloch people's economic and other grievances through political means.
The ARD held a meeting in Islamabad on Friday to deliberate the issue and adopted a resolution in which it mentioned some right reasons to oppose the military action. Terming the action as a threat to national security and the country's integrity it said, "The use of force against our own people in Balochistan is taking the country towards the East Pakistan-like situation."
But the resolution also contained a bizarre appeal to "the Western democratic forces to support the oppressed people instead of dictators, endorse the views of the ARD and other democratic forces and stop the government from using force to suppress the fundamental and human rights of the people of Balochistan."
First of all, it needs to be noted that the appeal is directed at eliciting the support of Western governments - the same governments that have invaded and occupied Iraq in the name of freedom and democracy - not some genuine private pro-democracy groups and organisations.
If anyone has some doubt as to who the object of this appeal may be, there is another event to help clarify it. According to a press report, some representatives of the ANP, Pukhtun nationalist party that for long has taken pride in its left-of-centre credentials, met with the American Consul General in Peshawar to seek his support in countering General Musharraf's campaign for the construction of the controversial Kalabagh dam.
The American official is said to have assured them that he would forward their concerns to his Ambassador. The implication, of course, is that the envoy would take up the issue with the government and tell it how to deal with a purely domestic affair. In other words, the notions of national independence, self-respect and sovereignty are to take a backseat as other countries instruct our own government how to settle internal matters whether these relate to the rights of a federating unit or the question of building big dams.
To say the least, it is shameful that the Opposition leaders should seek the intervention of Western countries, in particular the US, to resolve issues that should be the business of no one but the people and politicians of this country.