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| Balochistan cut off from rest of country |
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Thursday, August 31, 2006
Muhammad Ejaz Khan
QUETTA: The Baloch-dominated areas of Balochistan remained tense on Wednesday in protest against the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti as hundreds of protesters blocked the main highways with boulders, crudely built barriers and trucks, literally disconnecting the restive province from the rest of the country.
A partial strike, called by the Four Parties’ Baloch Alliance, also brought the routine life at standstill across the province, including Quetta. The Quetta-Taftan International Highway was blocked at Naushki, Dalbadin, Chaghi and Taftan. Angry protesters barricaded the Quetta-Karachi National Highway at Lakh Pass, Mastung, Qalat, Khuzdar, Wadh and some other areas. Similarly, protesters staged sit-ins on the Coastal Highway at various points in Gwadar.
Most of the business centres, markets and shops remained shuttered, particularly in the ethnic Baloch majority areas, with thin traffic on the roads. However, normalcy is gradually returning to the provincial capital.
Although courts, banks and government offices opened in the Quetta city on Wednesday, routine work was negligible. There was no transaction in the banks, while attendance in government offices, particularly those located on Sariab Road, was also thin. Besides, all the educational institutions, including the University of Balochistan, remained closed.
The shutter-down strike entered fourth day in other parts of the troubled province, including Turbat, Mand, Tump, Baleda, Dasht, Punjgur and Mastung. In Turbat enraged protesters rampaged through the streets and ransacked an under-construction radio high transmission building.
Ghaibana Namaz-e-Janaza was offered for the slain Baloch chieftain, Nawab Akbar Bugti at Naseerabad under the aegis of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). After the funeral prayers mourners also staged a protest demonstration.
Funeral prayers were also offered for Akbar Bugti at Central Eidgah, Khuzdar, where mourners also clashed with the personnel of law-enforcement agencies. Rioters ransacked shops at the Dalbadin bazaar of Chaghi district.
Activists of nationalist parties staged a sit-in, took out rallies and burnt tyres at the Hub river bridge linking Karachi with Balochistan, suspending vehicular traffic. Around 10,000 factory workers come to the Hub industrial area daily, but they could not reach their units on Wednesday, inflicting huge financial losses on factory owners and subsequently on the economy.
Agencies add: Suspected militants blew up a railway line on Wednesday. Police and Railways officials said militants blew up a railway track in the Mastung district, 50km south of Quetta. Meanwhile the Pakistan Railways, Quetta Division, said rail traffic remained functional in Balochistan on August 28, 29 and 30.
Railways authorities in a statement issued here on Wednesday rejected reports appearing in a section of the press and said the train operation remained uninterrupted and the Railways administration made all efforts to run the train according to schedule. Moreover, the passengers were transferred to their destinations by road when the situation demanded.
The statement appreciated the support of the provincial government, PPO, FC and CCPO Quetta who provided security to trains and passengers. Also on Wednesday Nawab Akbar Bugti’s son warned that the violence that has gripped the province since the death will continue until his father’s body is returned.
Jamil Bugti criticised the government’s conflicting statements and demanded the return of his father’s body. “Every day they are coming out with another explanation and it is all a pack of lies,” he said while greeting people expressing their condolences at Bugti’s home in Quetta.
“We need my father’s body. It is very important for us according to Islam and our culture,” Jamil Bugti told The Associated Press. “This violence will continue until we get the body and bury it properly.”
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ISSN 1563-9479 
