QUETTA, Feb 8: Security forces on Wednesday arrested seven men in connection with rocket and missile attacks in Sui, killing six people. Sources said that armed men perched on mountains fired dozens of rockets at Sui, hitting some houses. No casualty was reported.

Security forces returned fire and chased them.

“We have arrested seven tribesmen who are involved in rocket attacks and firing at Sui,” the sources said.

Outlaws in Rakhni and Kohlu areas also fired several rockets which exploded near Frontier Corps checkposts.

Meanwhile, engineers on Wednesday started repairing four gas pipelines which had been blown up recently at several points, suspending supply to the Uch power plant in Dera Murad Jamali and the Loti gas plant.

“Repair work will take two or three days,” the sources said, adding that landmines planted in the area were hampering the work.

“The Uch plant is owned by American and British companies which have suffered huge losses due to the blowing up of gas pipelines.”

The attacks on pipelines also affected gas production at the Loti plant. Loti and Pir Koh gas plants also faced water shortage after pipelines were destroyed and repair work could not be undertaken because of rocket attacks and landmines laid in the area.

Meanwhile, a Balochistan government spokesman said that security forces had opened the Dera Bugti-Sangsilla Road after ‘successful action’ against armed tribesmen in the area.

“Dera Bugti-Sangsilla Road is now open for all kinds of traffic,” the spokesman said.

Latif Baloch adds from Karachi: Jamhoori Watan Party’s Secretary-General Agha Shahid Bugti says that Dera Bugti has been turned into a ghost town after late Monday night’s rocket attack on Nawab Akbar Bugti’s house.

He told Dawn that after the departure of Nawab Bugti’s domestic servants from the house, FC personnel had taken control of the town and “we have no communication link with it”.

Answering a question about the prevailing situation, the JWP leader said one could not foresee how things would shape up. “The fact is that we are at war,” he said, adding: “The Nawab has gone to the hills to lead his people, despite his fragile health.”

On the other hand, the government was using its full might ‘to crush the Baloch people either by physically eliminating them through use of sophisticated arms or forcing them to migrate to other areas,” he said.

He also said that the government’s intentions were clear after the rocket attack on the Nawab’s house.

He admitted that the armed confrontation was at present confined to Bugti-Mari areas, but “we are not fighting for the rights of Dera Bugti and Mari areas alone”.

“Our cause is linked to Balochistan” and “we have been struggling for the rights of Baloch people who have been suppressed and subjugated by successive rulers of the country,” he said.

When he was asked about the role of other political parties, he said their response was not up to the requirement of the fast changing situation, because the confrontation between security forces and the Baloch people was intensifying each day.

“We have expected a much larger role considering the government’s large-scale crackdown on innocent people.

“I do not say that they should take up arms,” but at least they could hold rallies and organize strikes to pressurize the government to halt the operation in the Bugti and Mari areas.”