KARACHI, Aug 30: A big rally was staged by Awami National Party in front of the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday against, what it called, ‘assassination’ of Jamhoori Watan Party leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in Kohlu, where his companions were also killed in a military operation on Saturday.

Carrying red party flags and black banners, activists and supporters of ANP expressed their anguish and resentment over the killing, accusing the military rulers of having resorted to target killing extrajudicial way.

They also chanted slogans against General Pervez Musharraf and the government.

Addressing the protesters, President of the ANP, Sindh, Shahi Syed said the killing of Nawab Bugti was an attack on Pakistan’s integrity, and announced that his party fully supported the strike call for Friday as given by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

He wondered that Gen Musharraf appeared ready to resolve all disputes with India through negotiations but not willing to talk to national leaders to narrow down their differences with him. “This shows that our army and its leadership believed only in using weapons against their own countrymen,” he added.

Describing Bugti’s death the worst-ever incident in the history, he said it had jolted the country’s foundations. He deplored that the rulers had put country’s security and integrity at risk.

“We believe that the elimination of Akbar Bugti is the first step towards wiping out the remaining Pakistan from the world map,” he remarked, and appealed to people from all walks of life to rise up against the military rule and dictatorship.

Another ANP leader, Amin Khattak, said people were not opposing the army, but the military operations in Waziristan and Balochistan. Such operations, and the fresh incident of Nawab Bugti’s killing, were bound to deepen the hatred against the armed forces, he warned.

“Nawab Bugti was not an anti-state leader… He was very much a patriotic leader… He wanted to resolve the Balochistan issue through negotiations but was brutally killed,” he said.

Rana Gul Afridi, Sher Mohammad Baloch and other leaders addressed the rally.—PPI