KARACHI, Aug 30: Government sleuths on Wednesday piled pressure on the grieving sons of Nawab Akbar Bugti and asked them to make a hasty trek to the Kohlu district apparently to give credence to the army operation mounted to recover the body of the slain tribal chief.
Two of the three living sons of Nawab Bugti, who was reportedly killed in an attack on his mountain hideout on Aug 26, said they received threatening calls from intelligence agents.
“They told us that if we did not go to Kohlu, we would be kidnapped,” said 23-year-old Shahzwar Bugti, adding that the callers had not identified themselves.
“When I asked the caller why he wanted me to go to the site of the long-drawn recovery operation, he said I must go because my brothers are not going. He then hung up,” said Mr Bugti.
Fifty-seven-year-old Jamil Bugti said the government offered to take him and his brothers to the Kohlu district in the company of a provincial legislator and a federal legislator from Balochistan.
“Our demand is that our father’s body be handed over to us in Quetta for burial,” he said.
Mr Bugti explained that Nawab Bugti’s family members would not want to go to Dera Bugti where a government-sponsored jirga currently held sway.
“And this puppet jirga had the audacity to tell us that only two members of Nawab Bugti’s family could take part in his funeral,” he said.
Military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said the government had offered to take the bereaved sons of Nawab Bugti to the Kohlu district to witness the recovery operation.
“The invitation was made to them by Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf, Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and secretary-general Mushahid Hussain. But nobody threatened to kidnap them if they do not want to go to the Kohlu district,” he said.
Maj-Gen Sultan declined to comment on a decision of the recently constituted Dera Bugti jirga which ruled that only two members of Nawab Bugti’s family could attend his funeral.
“It is a unanimous decision of the jirga and I cannot say anything about it,” he said.
But the jirga decision has found detractors even among those who form part of the ruling coalition in Balochistan.
The deputy speaker of the provincial assembly, Aslam Bhootani, said that if the Dera Bugti jirga could enforce such harsh decisions there was no need for dislodging Nawab Bugti from power.