QUETTA, Dec 17: Frontier Corps personnel and Bugti tribesmen are returning to their positions in the Dera Bugti area, that were abandoned in April after Nawab Akbar Bugti and the federal government reached an agreement, according to reports reaching here.

Sources close to the Nawab said that the paramilitary troops had established their posts at different points and taken over abandoned bunkers on Saturday.

They said that armed Bugti tribesmen were also returning to bunkers they had vacated under the agreement that was made possible by several rounds of talks between Nawab Bugti and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Senator Mushahid Hussain.

The chief of the Jamhoori Watan Party, Nawab Bugti, has already expressed apprehension that the government was preparing to launch a military operation in the area. However, a spokesman of the FC in Quetta, Lt-Col Mohammad Jamil Hasan, denied the reports about the latest developments and said that the movement of FC troops in the area was a routine matter.

“The FC is not conducting any operation in Sui and Dera Bugti,” he said and added that such reports were wrong and baseless.

He said that the force had been deployed in the area to strengthen security of gas installations.