Islamabad, Sep 3 (IANS) Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has begun weighing political options in troubled Balochistan even as the government braced to face opposition protests, confined more to the province after the burial of slain tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti.
A day after Musharraf gained the "confidence" of the top military brass, he held discussions on Saturday with the civil administrators and political supporters in the government of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid).
Responding to simmering doubts expressed whether the person buried at Dera Bugti, in what The News International newspaper called was "a low-key affair", was actually Nawab Bugti, Balochistan Governor Owais Ghani told media in Quetta that Bugti's family members would be allowed to exhume the body for final rites and also to remove their doubts.
Owais blamed family members of Akbar Bugti and Baloch tribal leaders for boycotting the funeral.
As protests continue in Balochistan, significantly, opposition parties and leaders leading the agitation include Mengal, Marri and Bizenjo - among the tribes who had been at loggerheads with the slain Bugti chieftain.
At a joint press conference in Quetta, leaders, including Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo and Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani, charged that the government had violated Islamic, legal and Baloch/Pakhtoon traditions by not handing the body of Nawab Bugti over to his heirs, which was condemnable.
Meanwhile, The News International editorially demanded a high-level inquiry into Bugti's killing on Aug 26 in a military operation, if the government really wanted to conduct a damage control exercise.
Bugti's killing had reinforced the impression that in Pakistan, dissenting leaders of provinces - from Z.A. Bhutto to Bugti - could be eliminated either through violence or through court verdicts, the newspaper said.
The government had been "unsure and uneasy in its response" to the doubts expressed whether the person buried in a padlocked coffin was Bugti himself, the editorial said.
"Ominous parallels were drawn between this event and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's dead-of-night burial in Larkana in 1979. Then too, the military was accused of assassinating a leader from a smaller province for standing up to the military.
"Whatever the actual truth, the way the burial was handled has served to strengthen the hand of those who view Bugti as a martyr to a cause and view the authorities as having something to hide. Could the authorities not foresee the reaction to their actions given the volatile mood of the country?" the editorial asked.