February 6, 2006	Monday	Muharram 7, 1427

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QUETTA, Feb 5: The Jamhoori Watan Party has rejected allegations levelled by a district official about tribesmen having attacked gas plants in Sui and said that clashes in the Sui town are results of an internal feud between sub-clans of the Kalpars.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, JWP spokesman Agha Shahid Hasan Bugti said he had cautioned the government that gas plants could be attacked if the Bandulanis were expelled from Sui.

Refuting the allegations that tribesmen had attacked the Sui gas plant on Saturday or Sunday, he said that the district official of Dera Bugti was concealing facts in order to malign Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

He said that tribesmen did not attack the Sui plants even when the artillery of security forces shelled the fort of Nawab Bugti. The tribesmen, he added, would never damage their own gas fields in Sui, Loti and Pirkoh areas.

He said that disturbance had started in Sui due to the unwise decision of the government to resettle Bandulanis in the fenced areas controlled by security guards as the Bandulanis did not have good relations with other sub-clans of the Kalpars.

He held the district coordination officer and Frontier Corps officials in Dera Bugti responsible for the outbreak of hostilities in the area and alleged that corrupt government officials wanted the fighting between tribesmen and security forces to continue.

The JWP spokesman said that on Sunday security forces had fired mortars on the Dera Bugti town from the Loti checkpost, which is 22km from the town, to provoke the tribesmen to retaliate, but they did not.

Answering a question about the safety of Sui gas plants, Mr Agha Bugti said the situation would improve if the Bandulanis were shifted from Sui to some other place.