QUETTA: President of the Balochistan chapter of Pakistan People’s Party Haji Lashkari Raisani has said that the Balochistan package envisages formation of an independent commission to trace missing people.

Addressing a joint press conference with PML-N provincial president Sardar Yaqoob Nasar on Friday, he said the government had received a list of around 800 missing people from the BNP (Mengal).

The PML-N announced that it would back PPP’s candidate Tahir Mehmood in the by-election for the PB-1 Quetta seat which fell vacant after the assassination of provincial education minister Shafiq Ahmed Khan on Oct 25.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party also announced its support for Mr Mehmood who is younger brother of the late Shafiq Khan.

Mr Raisani said that some 600 missing people had already been traced and efforts were being made to locate others.

He said the PPP government was determined to end the suffering of families of the missing people.

He said that most of the missing people had been picked up by agencies during the Musharraf regime.

He said that Gen (retd) Musharraf must be tried in the Nawab Bugti murder case.

‘If the court convicted Musharraf in the case his party’s government will follow court instructions about his arrest,’ he said.

Mr Raisani said the Balochistan package would be announced this year.

‘The package has three parts—constitutional, administrative and financial—and this will help normalise the situation.’

He said that efforts would be made to bring resistance fighters to the negotiating table to work out a political solution to the crisis.