ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: Federal Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said on Sunday that the body of former Balochistan governor and chief minister Nawab Akbar Bugti had not yet been taken out from the rubble of the bunker destroyed in the Saturday attack and that it would be buried in the presence of members of the bereaved family.

The minister made these remarks at a press conference in response to a demand by Nawab Bugti’s son, Talal Bugti, that his father and other slain relatives be buried in their ancestral graveyard in Dera Bugti.

Mr Durrani said it was unclear whether Nawab Bugti’s grandsons, Brahmadagh and Mirali, had also been killed in the raid which left seven security forces personnel, including three officers, dead.

He said the issue was discussed in detail at a meeting of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao and Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain with President Gen Pervez Musharraf at the summer hill resort of Murree on Sunday.

The minister evaded questions whether he was personally grieved by the killing of a seasoned politician like Nawab Bugti. He refused to respond to a query as to why recommendations of the parliamentary committee on Balochistan had not been implemented by the government.

Mr Durrani dismissed as untrue reports that Nawab Bugti’s cave had been hit by a laser-guided missile.

“No such missiles are manufactured by Pakistan. So there is no question of laser-guided missiles hitting the bunker in which Nawab Bugti was hiding,” he said.

Giving details of the military raid, he said that resistance offered by Nawab Bugti’s men was so intense that arresting him alive was not even remotely possible.

“The operation started on Aug 23 when one of the two helicopters sent on a tip-off about the presence of renegades in the Taratani area of Kohlu district came under fire. Another helicopter was hit by enemy fire shortly afterwards. The operation intensified on Aug 26 as the militants, operating out of heavily fortified bunkers, employed high-tech weaponry and killed seven security officials,” he said.