Killing of Baloch leaders

The long-waged insurgency in Balochistan for greater share of natural resources and more autonomy goes through sporadic eruptions, often disregarded by Islamabad as tribal warfare or treated as uprisings in a far-off satrapy to be quelled by force. So, since Independence no other province of Pakistan has suffered so much at the hands of Centre as Balochistan has.
And it culminated under General Pervez Musharraf who did not hesitate to order the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti over a dispute relating to the wellhead price for the Sui gas! Obviously, the democratic dispensation following his exit tendered a public apology for the crimes done to the Baloch society.
The killing of three Baloch nationalist leaders in circumstances not as mysterious as some would like to portray once again confirms that the apology made by President Asif Ali Zardari to the people of Balochistan was mere empty words. According to eyewitness accounts and media reports, they were present in the office of their lawyer, Advocate Ali Kachkol, in Turbat when over a dozen persons, alleged to be security personnel, came in three cars and took them away.
The news of their abduction was made public in a press conference almost instantaneously. But a week later, their badly mutilated and decomposed bodies were discovered from the nearby mountains. Since, almost every Baloch leader has invariably blamed the abduction on the security personnel; the FC and Pakistan Army have denied a hand in the ghastly murder of Baloch leaders. A spokesman of the ISPR considers this an act of anti-state elements out to destabilise and undermine the reconciliatory efforts of the government.
Only a few days or weeks ahead of the assassination of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, President General Musharraf had warned him of being hit from where, he would not know. But by now everybody knows who killed him. To trace and punish the abductors of Baloch nationalist leaders a judicial commission has been set up and an official investigation also launched by Chief Minister Raisani. But if at all and how soon the culprits would be punished we do not know.
After all, a year on, there is no clue yet as to who assassinated the twice elected prime minister and leader of Pakistans largest political party, Benazir Bhutto. However, there is an intriguing backdrop to the circumstances of these three killings. One of the Baloch nationalist leaders was a key member of the committee tasked to secure the release of the abducted US national and UNHCR employee, John Solecki, who was released only a couple of days after they were taken away.
It is not for us to speculate who could have abducted and killed the three Baloch nationalist leaders; it is for the government agencies to go after the killers and bring them to justice. But we would certainly insist that the sensitivities of this issue brook no delay.
The reaction to the murderous act has been intense and spontaneous all over the province and in Baloch areas in other provinces, and that continues. The Baloch leaders, across the political divide, have joined the public by sharply condemning the heinous crime and demanded immediate action.
May be the crime was perpetrated by some rogue elements within the agencies. If so, the tough action taken by the late COAS General Asif Nawaz against an army officer for his part in a mass murder in interior Sindh should serve as a precedent and case law.
Given the turmoil that obtains in Balochistan it is quite possible that foreign-funded anti-state elements committed this crime. But this remains a conjecture unless proved. Nobody should be allowed to take the law into his hands. Important, however, at the moment is prompt handling of this very sensitive case.