 Security forces on Thursday demolished houses used by tribesmen to launch a bloody attack on gas installations in Balochistan. Militiamen used bulldozers to raze the houses near Sui, residents said. "We are bulldozing those houses from where the rockets were fired," Balochistan Home Minister Mir Shoaib Nusherwani told Reuters. "We are trying to secure the areas near the gas field." Residents of Sui, which is about 400 km east of Quetta, said security forces stepped up security before demolishing the houses. "The gas field has been sealed off and helicopters are hovering over it," resident Niaz Bugti told Reuters. Nawab Bugti told Daily Times earlier that army troops and 17 tanks had reached Sui in the morning and sealed off the town before starting search operations. He said the government had announced compensation of Rs 50,000 for each concrete house demolished, but none for mud houses. The action came a day after police sought arrest warrants against 36 tribesmen for launching the January 11 attack on the Sui field in which as many as 15 people died and the main purification plant and pipelines were damaged. The wanted group included a son and a grandson of powerful tribal leader and regional political figure Nawab Akbar Bugti. |