Jamhoori Watan Party’s provincial chief Shahzain Bugti. PHOTO BANARAS KHAN/EXPRESS
Shahzain Bugti is the grandson of late Baloch nationalist leader and former chief minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.
Shahzain, while talking to Express News, stated there is a wave of happiness in the whole Bugti community because of the court’s decision, further stating that it is the right of every Pakistani to go home.
As many as 12,000 displaced Bugti families had staged a sit-in protest on national highway in Kashmore district when law enforcement agencies barred them from proceeding towards their ancestral hometown in Bugti tribal territory.
More than 250 families had been living under the sky with few tents and insufficient food. Protestors had blocked the highway connecting Balochistan to Sindh and Punjab. Balochistan Levies, police and Frontier Corps (FC) were deployed near Kashmore to stop the convoy from proceeding towards Dera Bugti.
The Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch had broken his promise, Shahzain told Express News.
Dr Baloch had promised that 178,000 Bugti refugees, who were internally displaced as a result of the 2005 military operation ordered by then president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in Bugti tribal territory, would be rehabilitated.
The Bugti tribesmen had to leave Dera Bugti in 2005 after the military operation was carried out against Nawab Akbar Bugti by Gen Pervez Musharraf. Nawab Bugti was killed and hundreds of thousands of Bugti tribesmen had to leave their homes. They were moved to Jaffarabad, Nasirabad, Sibi, Jacobabad, Sadiqabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Sanghar, Osta Mohammad and Karachi.
The displaced Bugtis tried twice to return to Dera Bugti in the past, but were stopped by security forces at the Dolo checkpost. Several months ago, over 178 internally displaced Bugti families led by Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti and his younger brother Gohram Bugti set up a protest camp outside the Islamabad Press Club.
They had demanded that the government should provide them security and hand over the fort of Nawab Bugti to the family after getting it vacated from security forces.
Sources in the provincial home department told the media that the government had provided security to the returning tribesmen.“The government of Dr Abdul Malik Baloch had ordered law-enforcement agencies to provide foolproof security to the convoy and allow it to enter Dera Bugti safely,” a senior official said.
Gohram Bugti had told the journalists there was no risk of tribal clash if the displaced Bugti tribesmen lived in their hometown. “We want to live in our hometown in peace,” he had said.
The sources quoted a district official as saying that the fort of Nawab Bugti had been vacated by the Frontier Corps for the family of Nawab Bugti.
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Register with the security forces? Are they crossing Wagha border? What about visa and passport???
What a novel idea. Allowing the Bugti tribe to return to their homeland! The Bloch should have been living in their homes not the killers and outsiders.