MULTAN, March 7: Failing to maintain law and order, Rajanpur police have reportedly picked up for interrogation the chief of the Khiazi tribe in Balochistan apparently for face saving.

Reports reaching here said police called tribal chief Sardar Sobdar, who was residing in a gas-rich area of Dera Bugti, with a request to secure them release of three policemen kidnapped allegedly by Chakrani Bugtis on January 26 last.

The Khiazi chief had earlier been in the centre of negotiations between law-enforcers and the Bugti outlaws on many occasions. He successfully struck deals for the release of people kidnapped by the Bugtis.

After the kidnapping of the three police officials, including inspector Farooq Leghari, the police authorities had approached the Khiazi chief to take them out of a shameful situation.

Sobdar Khan had reportedly held a number of meetings with the kidnappers and conveyed to the police their demands of Rs0.7 million ransom per head and return of a tractor-trolley, which the Shahwali police had impounded a few years ago when some outlaws were stealing oil from parco pipeline passing through the area. The thieves managed to escape.

A police source disclosed that negotiations with the kidnappers were progressing when the latter, expressing distrust on Sobdar Khan, demanded direct dealing with the police.

It is learnt that Sobdar Khan has been living in Rajanpur for the education of his children. The area police Thursday evening called him on the pretext of a meeting on the kidnapping issue, and shifted him to Jampur in tight security for interrogation.

Interestingly, some senior Rajanpur police officials took the Khiazi chief as a Bugti, as his sovereign tribe lives in a buffer zone between Bugti tribe of Balochistan and Mazari of the Punjab. The Khiazi do not enjoy cordial relations with the Bugti, especially on the rental issues of gas fields.

Meanwhile, the police had also picked up Wadera Ghulam Husain of Mazari Goth on Friday from a hotel near Dera Morr on the Indus Highway. Wadera is the head of Eshani sub-clan of Mazari tribe, and his clan is on warpath with the Bugtis since the kidnapping and murder of his brother.

The reason for Wadera’s arrest could not be known, but it seemed that the police had arrested him to redress the balance.

However, sources in the Rajanpur administration said both the arrests were the outcome of political pressure exerted by the people currently at the helm of district affairs.

The police is said to be under tremendous pressure to secure release of a Pashtoon, who belonged to the area of top police official posted recently in the Punjab, kidnapped a few months ago. Initially, Lal Mazari was engaged by the police to mediate between the kidnappers and the law-enforcers.

Meanwhile, the family of kidnapped inspector Farooq Leghari has reportedly started efforts on their own to get him released.

It is reliably learnt that the victim’s father Muhammad Khan Leghari had managed to meet his son at his captors’ hideout on the Punjab side of inter-provincial border, the left of the Sui Road. Later, he approached many local notables to find a guarantor between him and the outlaws to the deal.

“But, we can’t help him after the fate of Sobdar Khan and Lal Khan,” an area notable, approached by the victim’s father, told Dawn.