Kerbala-like Killing of Baluch Reported

A prominent Baluch political leader has likened the military operation in the strife-torn Baluchistan towns of Dera Bugti and Sui to Kerbala—the batttleground where a grandson of the Muslim prophet, Mohammad, was assasisnated more than 13 century ago.

Haji Mir Hayat Jamaldini, vice president of the Baluch Republican Party Friday said the Pakistan security forces were conducting a genocide and targetting minors, females, women and the aged alike in the two Baluch towns.

He accused the Pakistani army of treating the Baluch “the way Yazid treated Imam Hussain.” The story of Hussain's defiance to a te Muslim Caliph named Yazid [680-683] is generally recalled to refer to a David and Goliath struggle.

He said Pakistani forces had opened indiscriminate firing and were conducting a genocide of the civilians in the two places.

Sui and era Bugti are strongholds of legendary Baluch hero and martyr Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 79, who was the chief minister and governor of Baluchistan.

Bugti was killed extra judicially by the Pakistan army on August 26, 2006 after he demanded an end to the loot and plunder of Baluchistan resources. The Bugti area produces natural gas worth at least $7 million each day, but Pakistan gives Baluchistan only 10 days worth of the gas production and keeps the rest to itself.

“Terror and violence can  not force the Baluch to leave their ancestral land,” Jamaldini said, the daily Tawar reported.

The current month in the Islamic lunar calendar is called Moharram—the same month when Hussain and his family martyred in 680. Shias all over the world commemorate the killing of Hussain and his family by beating ther chests and weeping as tales of his bravery and struggle are narrated.

The reference to Hussain's struggle against despotism has relevance as a grandson of slain Bugti, Nawab Brahamdagh is now leading the Baluch resistance against the Pakistan military.

The Pakistan government has tried to prop up one of the slain Nawab's most disliked sons, Nawabzada Talal Bugti, to ostracise the resistance.

Nawabzada Talal Bugti recently met many Pakistani politicians, including President Asif Ali Zardari, former premier Nawaz Sharif and Pakistani Muslim Brotherhood, or Jamat islami, chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed.

The government has managed to split the slain Nawab's family into three groups, but the most effective among them is Nawab Brahamdagh Bugti, who was groomed by Nawab Bugti to become his political successor and who is still in the mountains of Baluchistan challenging the Pakistani injustices, Robinhood-style.

“He is a hero,” says Mir Fahd Bugti, a nephew of the late Nawab Bugti.