Collateral damage

Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

The news of the death of 12 Bugti tribesmen in a supposed clash with the FC men after a mine blast that killed three of the FC men is alarming and disconcerting. Details filtering out say that they were taken into custody after the blast and executed. 

The news is all the more disturbing because this incident is not without precedent. In the Dungan area of Marri agency in the fall of 1975, nine Marri tribesmen of the Shahija and Kalwani clan, including Qaiser Khan, Baazi Khan Shahija and Ganj Ali Kalwani were lined up and shot after the army suffered losses in a clash in the vicinity. That atrocity had gone unpunished and unnoticed and this one too will probably go unpunished, in spite of being reported. Such atrocities have grave implications and consequences for the health of the federation and its credibility as protector of people’s rights.