QUETTA: Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti, chief of the Bugti Tribe … strongly refuted the allegations levelled against him… .

Nawab Akbar Bugti said he never entertained the idea of “Independent Baluchistan”, so far as “my allegiance to the country’s oneness is concerned I refer to the Shahi Jirga referendum held in Baluchistan in the year 1947 when I voted for Pakistan. However, I again affirm that there is no such idea as independent Baluchistan, at least in our minds and my people and we are absolutely loyal to the integrity and solidarity of the country”. … He also said he stopped fighting in 1970 when One Unit was broken and the province of Baluchistan again came into being. This statement, Nawab Bugti said, gives evidence that our struggle was against One Unit only… . — News agencies

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies in Islamabad,] … [M]r. Sultan M. Khan, in a letter to the United Nations’ Secretary-General, U Thant … said the threat to peace in the sub-continent existed because India, “in violation of its solemn obligations under the Charter of the United Nations not only refuses to honour its commitments with regard to the peaceful settlement of outstanding disputes between Pakistan and itself but it also openly interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan”.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2021