Exiled no more

To see 12,000 internally-displaced Bugti families being barred from proceeding to their hometown is heartbreaking.

Only those who have been forced to live in exile can understand the pain one feels living away from home. Thus, to see as many as 12,000 internally-displaced Bugti families being barred from proceeding to their hometown area is heartbreaking, to say the least. Led by Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti, these families staged a sit-in on the National Highway in Kashmore on January 20. These families have had to spend nights in cold weather, hoping to return to Dera Bugti.

Thousands of Bugti tribesmen were displaced in 2005 during a military operation in the Bugti area, ordered by then president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed along with his comrades during the military action. The insurgency in Balochistan took another route following his assassination. Once democracy was restored in the country after the 2008 elections, the displaced Bugtis saw a ray of hope but the situation in Balochistan did not improve much. Thousands of Baloch people are missing, many have been killed and while some Bugti families were able to return to Dera Bugti, others were not. The current dispensation has made promises but it seems very hollow at the moment. Despite assurances given by the federal and provincial governments that these families would be rehabilitated and allowed to return to their hometown, the law-enforcement agencies are not facilitating them. The government should not just pay mere lip service but must translate its words into action. These families have already been through a lot and their difficulties should now be dealt with in a humanitarian way. The government needs to come to the aid of these families for the situation created now must end. The affected families cannot continue to live out in the cold. It has been almost a decade since they left their homes; they must now be rehabilitated and should not have to live in exile any more. It is their democratic right. The government must not fail them, again.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2014.

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