Bugti murder case: SHC grants former home minister bail

Shoaib Khan fears arrest as he goes to attend trial in Sibi.

KARACHI:

Mir Shoaib Khan Nowsherwani, a former home minister of Balochistan, was admitted to protective bail for three weeks against a solvent surety of Rs0.5 million by Justice Shahid Anwar Bajwa and Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar of the Sindh High Court here on Friday.

Nowsherwani has been nominated as an accused in the murder case of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, chief of Jamhoori Watan Party and a former governor of Balochistan, who died in a military operation in August 2006.

M. Ilyas Khan and Muhammad Faoor advocates, appearing along with the accused before the court, submitted that he was innocent in the case as neither he nor the provincial government was aware of the operation against Nawab Bugti. It was purely a military operation carried out under the command of General Pervez Musharraf, the accused stated in his request for protective bail so he can join a trial before an anti-terrorism court in Sibi.

Nowsherwani fears he will be arrested when he lands at Quetta on the way to Sibi to stand trial, the counsel submitted. The bench admitted him to protective bail for three weeks.

The case was registered on a written complaint filed by Nawabzada Jamil Akbar Bugti, the son of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti, against former president Pervez Musharraf, former federal interior minister Aftab Sherpao, former governor Owais Ghani, former chief minister Jam Muhammad Yousuf, Shoaib Khan Nowsherwani and others for killing Nawab Bugti.

Dera Bugti DCO Abdul Samad Lasi is a fugitive in the case besides Musharraf while  Jam Yousuf obtained protective bail a month back.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2012.