MULTAN, Jan 30: Bugti tribesmen resumed heavy artillery shelling onto Mazari Goth in Punjab at 5pm on Thursday.
Reports reaching here said that some of the shrapnel fired from Dera Bugti in Balochistan landed near the encampment of the rangers on the provincial border at Dauli checkpoint of the border military police.
The shelling caught the rangers off guard and they ran for shelter. The government had deployed some 350 personnel of the para-military force at Mazari Goth, some 340km from here, to guard the 21-kilometre gas pipeline.
The rangers did not respond to the shelling which continued unabated when sources in the area were contacted at 7pm. Official sources in Dera Bugti confirmed that the Bugtis were again using dangerous weaponry.
The Mazaris, surrounded by the rangers, were unable to return the fire. The elders in Mazari tribe said there was a growing sense of insecurity on two accounts — first, there was no comparison between the conventional armoury of the Mazaris and the sophisticated weaponry possessed by the Bugtis; second, the Mazaris were afraid that the government might make them scapegoat for face-saving against the humiliation the Bugtis had inflicted on it vis-a-vis its writ of law.
They spoke of three dimensions of the crisis: One was the row between Nawab Akbar Bugti and the government over the rental issues of Sui gas fields; the second were clashes between the Mundrani sub-clan of the Bugti tribe and the Eshani sub-clan of the Mazari tribe and the third were the outlaws who robbed and kidnapped people on the Indus highway and took refuge in the inter-provincial tribal belt.
Meanwhile, the Rajanpur police have failed to recover three policemen allegedly kidnapped by the Bugti tribesmen on Sunday. They are: Inspector Farooq Leghari, constable Nazar Hussain and driver Mohammad Tufail.
Police officials claimed on Thursday that negotiations were under way to secure the release of the officials through the district administration of Dera Bugti.
However, the acting district coordination officer of Dera Bugti, Khaleeq Kiyani, denied that the Punjab police had approached the Dera administration for the release of the policemen.
Shamim Shamsi adds from Sukkur: Sources said that the attack by the Bugtis, fourth during the last fifteen days, had damaged three houses at the Mazari village.
Sources claimed that the Mazari tribesmen returned the fire with mortar guns. The firing continued for about one hour before the Bugtis fled.
Report said that because of the deployment of some 250 rangers on the border belt of Sindh and Balochistan the Tangwani, Risaldar, and Bahoo Khoso police stations were sealed.
