QUETTA • A strike paralysed Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province yesterday after the controversial burial of a top rebel leader whose killing sparked days of deadly rioting. There was also unrest as mobs set fire to a police post and shops in Panjgur district in Balochistan. Police said they arrested 70 men for inciting trouble and the situation was tense. Partial strikes also hit southern Sindh and central Punjab provinces.
In the port city of Karachi, PakistanÂ’s commercial and financial hub, police and protestors exchanged fire and angry mobs blocked roads, burnt tires and pelted moving vehicles with stones. Police lobbed tear gas shells and exchanged fire with protesters in the Lyric and Landau neighbourhood of the city. Three people, including a policeman, were wounded in the firing, officials said.
The strike was called by opposition parties following the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a veteran Baloch nationalist, in a military operation last Saturday. Bugti, seen as a hero for his long-running confrontation with the central government of President Pervez Musharraf, was slain last week in his cave hideout in a military offensive.
Authorities, fearing a repeat of angry protests earlier this week that left 10 dead, quietly buried BugtiÂ’s body amid tight security before only a few dozen tribesmen, with his family, friends and supporters absent. Officials have blamed the collapse of BugtiÂ’s cave hideout on an unexplained explosion and have denied trying to kill the white-bearded octogenarian.
It took army engineers, working under tight security, until late Thursday to dig out his badly decomposed body. The body was in an “advanced stage of decay,” said military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan.
The corpse was taken to Dera Bugti in a sealed coffin and it was not shown to journalists attending the burial, private GEO television said. Maulana Malook Bugti, who led the funeral prayers, told reporters that he had seen the body and identified Bugti, the network said.
Opposition parties have demanded an inquiry into BugtiÂ’s death, who was one of more than 20 people killed in the military blitz. Army engineers were still looking for other victims.
Witnesses said all markets, banks and schools in BalochistanÂ’s capital Quetta were closed.
BugtiÂ’s death prompted four days of rioting which left 10 dead as mobs torched buildings, banks and set off explosions in towns and cities throughout Balochistan.