Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti;Bugti Chief Nawab Muhammad Akbar Bugti a.k.a Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti
The Bugti Clan
BUGTI, a Baluch tribe of Rind (Arab) origin, numbering about 15,500, who occupy the hills to the east of the Sind-Peshin railway, between Jacobabad and Sibi, with the Marris (a cognate tribe) to the north of them. Like the Marris, the Bugtis are physically a magnificent race of people, fine horsemen, good swordsmen and hereditary robbers. An expedition against them was organized by Sir C. Napier in 1845, but they were never brought under control till Sir Robert Sandeman ruled Balochistan. Since the construction of the railway, which completely outflanks their country, they have been fairly orderly.
Bugti-Kalpar Dispute
Bugti has confined himself to his fortress-like home in Dera Bugti after his youngest son Salal was gunned down at the Jinnah Avenue in Quetta in the '90s, following a series of target killings between the Bugtis and a sub-clan, the Kalpars. The issue between the Bugtis and the Kalpars was the share in booty received from Sui gas installations. The Kalpars lived for generations near Dera Bugti but were eventually forced to vacate the area and were made to settle near Multan in 1995 or 1996 by the Benazir government.
Dera Bugti and The Government
The Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) manages and operates Sui gas installations which are located on Bugti lands. It is a fact that Bugti draws a sizable amount every year from the PPL as rent for his tribal land. Some say the amount is Rs60 million a year, while others believe it is Rs90 million a year. Besides, the Bugtis are said to have a quota of employment in Sui installations. Akbar Bugti's adversaries in Quetta insist that it is an all-ghost employees quota. Akbar Bugti pockets all the money that comes through wages. "He is the Pir Pagaro of Balochistan," a retired government employee who is now an activist of Baloch rights, said.Nawab Akbar Bugti is consigned to negotiating rights and concessions only for his Bugti tribesmen in Sui. And the various civilian federal governments that came and went were content to accede to his local pecuniary demands.
Nawab Bugti was a state Defence Minister before the 1958 military take-over. He remained in prison for some time not for political reasons, but on criminal charges. From 1973 to 1977 he was with the government that carried out a military operation in Balochistan in which the official figure of Baloch casualties was more than 3,000. Approximately 80,000 Pakistani troops and 55,000 Balochs were involved in a fullfledged battle. "At the height of the fighting in late 1974, the US supplied Iranian combat helicopters, some manned by Iranian pilots, joined the Pakistan Air Force in raids on Baloch camps," informed Selg S. Harrison in his more than 200-page research work sponsored by Carnegie Endowment in 1977 just before Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul. The Balochs, according to Selig Harrison, lacked any foreign help and were armed with only bolt action rifles and homemade grenades. The unofficial army casualty figure during that uprising is mentioned being somewhere between 2,000 and 2,300 - and more than this figure sustained injuries.
Sui Gas Issue
After the rape incident of a Lady Doctor from Karachi by employees of PPL,the situation at Sui flared up and as many as 450 to 500 rockets were fired between January 7 and 11,2005. Security guards clashed with armed men who attacked gas installations. PPL officials claimed that heavy damages were caused to various sections of the installations including the 400mmcf-capacity gas purification plant. Gas supply was suspended to the southern and northern regions of the country. It was said that repair work would take several days and involve a huge amount of money, making suspension of gas supply stretch for a period longer than originally expected.
Bugti's son and grandson, along with 84 other persons, have already been booked by the Sui police station for damaging gas installations. About 7,000 regular troops aided by the Frontier Constabulary and Defence Security Guards, are carrying out house-to-house search. They have allegedly demolished many homes and rounded up more than 200 persons. The government's position is that no military operation is being carried out in Sui or Dera Bugti and the army is only protecting gas installations.
But the Sui police station has been unable to interrogate two doctors of the Sui hospital in connection with the rape of a Karachi lady doctor in early January 2005. On the third day of Eid, the two doctors of the hospital were brought to the police station. Sui security guards stormed the police station. It is said that the police ran out of the police station and took refuge in Kashmore. A private television channel reported this incident late in the evening on the third day of Eid. It was partially published in the next day's newspapers.
The incident has brought into focus the issue of Balochistan government's writ. The Naseerabad police station registered the rape case soon after it was made public at a press conference in the first week of January by one of the notables of the Bugti tribe. He informed the general public of the rape of a Karachi doctor in the Sui hospital, allegedly by four security officials and staff. He accused the PPL management of trying to put a lid on the case. The Naseerabad police station's FIR pinpoints PPL officials who were creating impediments in the way of the case's investigation.
The government has its own explanation on the issue. A government adviser said during a private conversation that under the devolution plan the Nazim of Dera Bugti is Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti's henchman. According to the devolution plan, the police come under the control of the Nazim. The police at Sui complies with the orders of the Nawab and Nazim, which explains the swift movement of security forces
Akbar Bugti denied that damages were caused by his tribesmen and said that instead of targeting ground installations they would have fired at the high-rise towers, which they did not. He bluntly blamed the security forces for damaging the equipment.
Subsequent developments proved that repair work was done within a few days and gas supply resumed in the southern and northern regions of the country with normal pressure.
Nawab Akbar Bugti in one of his recent telephonic outbursts held out an implied threat that the proposed Pak-Iran oil pipeline project could be completed only with the blessings of the Balochs.
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