QUETTA, Sept 13: A close associate of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti was gunned down in Maro area of Dera Bugti on Saturday.

Noor Ali Bugti, a pro-government elder of the Bugti tribe, was going home in his car when unidentified attackers opened fire on him.

Noor Ali died on the spot.

Police shifted his body to a hospital in Dera Bugti.

The sources said Noor Ali was a close associate of Nawab Bugti, but later he started supporting government.

Another associate of Nawab Bugti was killed in a bomb explosion in Sui area of Dera Bugti last week. In another incident, a dumper was damaged when a landmine exploded on an under-construction road in Kahan area of the Koulu district on Saturday. The driver escaped unhurt.

A spokesman for the Baloch Republican Army, Sarbaz Baloch, claimed responsibility for both incidents. Talking from an undisclosed place on a satellite phone, he told newsmen that the man killed in Maro was spying for the government.