Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the chaiman of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) and a veteran politician, has resigned his seat in Pakistan's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly.
Balochistan in southwestern Pakistan borders Afghanistan and Iran and is home to Pakistan's Baluch ethnic minority. It has been the scene of a low-level insurgency and brutal army crackdown for years.
"I have resigned as member of the National Assembly," Mengal wrote on X on September 3, according to Radio Mashaal.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad later the same day, Mengal said he cannot serve his people as a member of the parliament and there was therefore no reason to stay in the seat.
A radical group known as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has waged an insurgency there for decades against the Pakistani state, carrying out mostly small-scale attacks against government forces.
But the region was the scene in late August of the deadliest bombings and shootings in years, and the BLA appears to have gained strength.
Pakistani militant groups including the BLA are believed to have obtained U.S. weapons and military equipment since U.S. and international forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, leaving behind billions of dollars' worth of military gear and weapons seized by the hard-line fundamentalist Taliban after it took power in Kabul.