Daily Times

Amid cries for justice, Nawab Akbar Bugti’s death anniversary was observed in Balochistan on Friday with a complete shutter-down. It is five years since Bugti, chief of the Bugti tribe and the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), also a former governor and elected chief minister of the province, was brutally murdered in an uncalled-for military action in Kohlu district on August 26, 2006. Since his extra-judicial assassination, his family and members of civil society are pleading for justice but the perpetrators of his murder have not yet been brought to book. The accused in the case are influential people, including former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf as the principal accused.

On a writ petition filed by Bugti’s son, Jamil Bugti in 2009, the Balochistan High Court (BHC) ordered the registration of a FIR of Bugti’s murder case against Musharraf and others. Since then the court’s proceeding are going on at a snail’s pace. At every hearing of the case, both the governments — provincial and federal — come up with lame excuses on Musharraf’s extradition issue. On August 17, the interior ministry showed its inability to extradite Musharraf due to the absence of an extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK. The Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) has declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender on May 30, 2011 in the Benazir assassination case. Still the former dictator is enjoying freedom with perks and privileges in his self-imposed exile. What does this say about the rule of law and justice in this country is evident. Instead of facilitating fair investigations and cooperating with the BHC, the federal government announced in July the formation of a judicial commission to probe the high profile murder. Formation of a judicial commission is seen as an attempt to jeopardise the case in the BHC.

Lack of justice in the Bugti murder case reinforces the belief among the Baloch that their grievances would never be addressed and the military would continue to resort to force and its kill and dump policy with impunity, attempting to throttle their voice for their rights. The delay in justice has turned the sputtering insurgency in the impoverished province into a national resistance. There is a need to bring Balochistan back into the mainstream. Although Prime Minister Gilani has recently empowered the provincial chief minister and governor to talk to the estranged Baloch leaders in exile and in the mountains to remove their grudges, no channels to hold such dialogues have been devised so far. The non-serious attitude of the government in addressing the grievances of the Baloch is intensifying separatist sentiment with each passing day. *