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Strike paralyses Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province

09-01-2006, 10h42
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP)

photo
A Pakistani protester throws a tear gas shell towards the police on a strike day in Karachi. A strike has paralysed Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province after the controversial burial of a top rebel leader whose killing sparked days of deadly rioting.
(AFP)

A strike has paralysed Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province after the controversial burial of a top rebel leader whose killing sparked days of deadly rioting.

There was also unrest as mobs set fire to a police post and shops in Panjgur district in Baluchistan. Police said they arrested 70 men for inciting trouble and the situation was tense.

Partial strikes also hit southern Sindh and central Punjab provinces.

In the port city of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial and financial hub, police and protestors exchanged fire and angry mobs blocked roads, burnt tires and pelted moving vehicles with stones.

Police lobbed tear gas shells and exchanged fire with protestors in the Lyric and Landau neighbourhood of the city. Three people, including a policeman, were wounded in the firing, officials said Friday.

The strike was called by opposition parties following the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a veteran Baluch nationalist, in a military operation last Saturday.

Bugti, seen as a hero for his long-running confrontation with the central government of President Pervez Musharraf, was slain last week in his cave hideout in a military offensive.

Authorities, fearing a repeat of angry protests earlier this week that left 10 dead, quietly buried Bugti's body amid tight security before only a few dozen tribesmen, with his family, friends and supporters absent.

Officials said they had offered to take Bugti's relatives to the ancestral cemetery in his native Dera Bugti but they had refused.

Bugti's son Jamil countered that his father was buried against the will of the family, insisting that the body should have been handed over to them.

"It's unethical and immoral. We and the entire Baluch nation are not surprised over this act by the military which has no regard for values," Jamil told AFP.

"It was our right to receive the body and bury it wherever the family wanted."

Bugti had made demands for provincial autonomy and a greater share of profits from Baluchistan's natural resources.

Officials have blamed the collapse of Bugti's cave hideout on an unexplained explosion and have denied trying to kill the white-bearded octogenarian.

It took army engineers, working under tight security, until late Thursday to dig out his badly decomposed body.

The body was in an "advanced stage of decay," said military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan.

The corpse was taken to Dera Bugti in a sealed coffin and it was not shown to journalists attending the burial, private GEO television said.

Maulana Malook Bugti, who led the funeral prayers, told reporters that he had seen the body and identified Bugti, the network said.

Opposition parties have demanded an inquiry into Bugti's death, who was one of more than 20 people killed in the military blitz. Army engineers were still looking for other victims.

Witnesses said all markets, banks and schools in Baluchistan's capital Quetta were closed.

Bugti's death prompted four days of rioting which left 10 dead as mobs torched buildings, banks and set off explosions in towns and cities throughout Baluchistan.

The vast southwestern province has seen nearly two years of attacks on pipelines, railway tracks and government installations. Hundreds of people have died since the unrest erupted in late 2004.

The slain tribal leader is survived by two wives, two sons and six daughters.


AFP

 

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