ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: In a rather belated debate on the killing of Jamhoori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Bugti in a military operation in Kohlu on Aug 26, treasury senators joined the opposition on Wednesday to condemn the use of force in Balochistan.
They demanded an immediate halt to military operation and called for political dialogue to resolve the issue which was endangering the country’s integrity.
The opposition had requisitioned a session of the upper house immediately after Nawab Bugti’s killing. The president, however, summoned regular session and both the sides in the house agreed to undertake the opposition’s agenda on a priority basis.
The government side stressed the need for restraint and called for making joint efforts to cool down emotions.
Leader of the Opposition in the house Mian Raza Rabbani, opening the debate, said use of brutal state machinery to kill Nawab Bugti had put Balochistan on fire, posing the threat of worst consequences for the federation. He said the regime, instead of overcoming tribalism for which it had claimed to have entered the province, had itself descended into tribalism.
The writ of the government could not be enforced but it grew from moral, political and constitutional legitimacy, which the current regime lacked, he said.
He underscored the need for halting the army action forthwith, conducting DNA test of Nawab’s Bugti’s body under foreign supervision, release of all political prisoners, recovery or disclosure of place of detention of those who had disappeared with the nature of charges faced by them and provision of defence counsel to them.
He said construction of cantonments and change from levies to police system in the province should be stopped, major projects should be launched in consultation with the provincial government, the first right to employment of locals should be accepted and job opportunities should be created for them on priority basis.
He demanded that the gas royalty should be renegotiated and arrears unde3r the head paid.
He said that, above all, provincial autonomy should be granted, beginning with deletion of the concurrent list and installing a real representative government in Balochistan.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi blamed the opposition for indulging in point scoring instead of helping the government resolve the issue by bringing calm to the province.
S.M. Zafar from the treasury benches said the circumstances in which Nawab Bugti was killed were regrettable and dangerous for the future of the country. He said it was high time that the provinces were given autonomy as enshrined in the constitution with transfer of powers.
He said a process of negotiation should be initiated without losing more time as its absence had caused Nawab Bugti’s death.
He stressed that all sides had admitted that the rights of people were unusually usurped under a non-democratic or semi-democratic rule.
He said political issues could never be resolved by use of force and they need to be resolved through political means.
He called for reactivation of the parliamentary committee on Balochistan to find a way out of the problem.
Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA said the federal list needed to be reviewed and all subjects on the concurrent list deleted to give the provinces autonomy promised in the constitution.
He called for decentralisation of financial powers and said the provinces should be entrusted with the authority to levy taxes.
He demanded that all those responsible for the operation against Nawab Bugti should be brought to book. He demanded setting up of a national commission headed by a Supreme Court judge to probe into the incident.
Dr Abdul Malik warned that the Baloch youths were determined to avenge the killing of their elder who was struggling for their rights. In a voiced chocked with emotions, the former provincial education minister said those who did not bargain on their land were fortunate sons of the soil and those who bowed before the dictators were unfortunate.