Bugti's grandson ready to accept help from India

Islamabad, Jul 24 (UNI) Brahamdagh Bugti, grandson of slain nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, has said he would accept any help from India, Afghanistan and Iran to defend Baluchistan.

In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, Brahamdagh said the military operation in Baluchistan has continued for the last four years and not for four days in which innocent people had been killed, local media reported today.

Brahamdagh said the government was conducting military operations to plunder resources of the province as well as to keep people of Baluchistan backward and said they would resist those who come to loot their resources in the name of development.

''Punjab and Pakistan do not have right over our gas resources.

If anyone wants to take it by force, then we will resist it,'' he said.

To a question about the supply of weapons from neighbouring countries, he said they were fighting to defend Baluchistan and had the right to accept help from abroad.

Brahamdagh said Pakistan was an atomic power and it used weapons against Baloch people. He said they preferred the integrity of Baluchistan over Pakistan.

To a question about negotiations, he said the government had got a chance to refresh the Army in the name of negotiations.

He urged the people to sacrifice for the defence of Baluchistan and said that peace talks would not solve the problems of Baluchistan.

He claimed that 40 to 50 security forces personnel were killed on the first day of the recent operation and the militants seized their weapons. He alleged that the security forces had killed 60 people, including women and children, in shelling by helicopters in different areas of Dera Bugti.

More than two dozen militants were killed and two of their bases detroyed in Dera Bugti town of Baluchistan, where insurgency erupted three years ago in the wake of demands for more autonomy and share in state resources for people of impoverished province, which is also supplying natural gas to the country.

Former chief minister and governor of Baluchistan Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed in a military operation in August 2006.

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