The fort of Nawab Akbar Bugti in Dera Bugti caught fire on Monday night as the last employees of the tribal chief vacated the building, a Bugti spokesman said. Dera Bugti District Coordination Officer Abdul Samad Lasi said that an arms and ammunition dump in the building had caught fire and security forces found three tribesmen’s bodies in the deserted fort. “We recovered three bodies, all appeared to have been hit by splinters from exploded ammunition,” he said. He said the Nawab’s employees probably set fire to the ammunition dump before they fled the fort. Asked how the fort had caught fire, tribal spokesman Shahid Bugti told a press conference at the Quetta Press Club that security forces had intensified attacks on the building in recent days, and mortars had hit five vehicles of Nawab Bugti. He denied that anybody had been killed. Lasi said security forces on Tuesday captured three suspected training bases used by the tribesmen and seized rocket launchers, rockets, bombs and AK-47 rifles. They also arrested two men as they were planting an anti-tank land mine on the road between Dera Bugti and Sui.
Bugti said at least 75 people, mostly women and children, and 62 security personnel have been killed in 38 days of military activity in Dera Bugti. The government has given no death toll on either side since it launched an operation in areas of Balochistan controlled by the Bugti and Marri tribes in December. The government says the sardars of these tribes run private militias which have repeatedly attacked government-owned infrastructure in the province and security officials, including a rocket attack on Gen Pervez Musharraf when he was visiting Kohlu on December 14 and an attack on the head of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.