QUETTA: Displaced Bugti tribesmen returned to their hometown of Dera Bugti on Thursday after about eight years.

Fifty vehicles carrying the tribesmen led by Nawabzada Gohram Bugti, a grandson of Akbar Bugti, left Dera Allahyar in Jaffarabad district for Dera Bugti after having been cleared by federal and provincial governments. After a brief stay in Jacobabad, Kashmore and Sui, the convoy reached Dera Bugti.

The tribesmen left Dera Bugti in 2005 after a military operation had been launched against Nawab Akbar Bugti by Gen Pervez Musharraf. Nawab Bugti was killed in a cave in Kohlu district.

Hundreds of thousands of Bugti tribesmen left their homes and moved to Jaffarabad, Nasirabad, Sibi, Jacobabad, Sadiqabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Sanghar, Osta Mohammad and Karachi.

They tried twice to return to Dera Bugti in the past, but were stopped by security forces at the Dolo checkpost.Several months ago, over 1,000 internally displaced Bugtis led by Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti and his younger brother Gohram Bugti set up a protest camp outside the Islamabad Press Club.

They demanded that the government should provide them security and hand over the fort of Nawab Bugti to the family after getting it vacated by security forces.

Sources in the provincial home department told Dawn that the government had provided security to the returning tribesmen.“The government of Dr Abdul Malik Baloch had ordered law-enforcement agencies to provide foolproof security to the convoy and allow it to enter Dera Bugti safely,” a senior official said.

Talking to journalists, Gohram Bugti said there was no risk of tribal clash if the displaced Bugti tribesmen lived in their hometown. “We want to live in our hometown in peace,” he said.

The sources quoted a district official as saying that the fort of Nawab Bugti had been vacated by the Frontier Corps for the family of Nawab Bugti.

Political circles welcomed the government’s decision of allowing the Bugti family to live in Dera Bugti and said it would help restore peace in the area and other parts of Balochistan.