QUETTA, Aug 28: The Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) on Monday announced a change in the venue of the funeral prayers of party chief Nawab Akbar Bugti. Speaking to journalists at the Bugti House, JWP spokesman Amanullah Kanrani said that Namaz-i-Janaza would now be held at the Nawab Akbar Bugti cricket ground in Ayub Stadium at 11am on Tuesday, instead of the Sadiq Shaheed Ground as was announced earlier.

He rejected a reported claim of Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani that the government had offered the bereaved family to receive Akbar Bugti’s body in Loralai from where it would be taken to Dera Bugti by helicopter.

He said there was contradiction in official statements as on the one hand Mr Durrani had said that the body had not been retrieved yet, and on the other he was complaining that the Bugti family was not cooperating to receive the body.

He said the government was creating confusion and trying to convince the bereaved family that only a few relatives of the late leader should attend the funeral prayers at Dera Bugti.

He said the government had no right to take a decision as to where Nawab Bugti would be buried.

The spokesman said it was not possible to take the body in government helicopters that had been used for shelling bombs on Akbar Bugti.

Meanwhile, Nawabzada Jamil Bugti, the elder son of Akbar Bugti, arrived here from Karachi in the afternoon.

A large number of leaders and workers of different political parties, tribal elders, lawyers, students and notables visited the Bugti House to offer condolences with two son-in-laws of the late leader, Mir Humayun Marri and Senator Shahid Hassan Bugti.