Govt hopes to bring Khan of Kalat home

[Edevelop]

QUETTA: The federal government is making arrangements to facilitate the return of the Khan of Kalat, Mir Agha Suleman Daud from the United Kingdom, where he has been living in self-imposed exile for about seven years, The Express Tribune has learnt.

“The Balochistan government is also on board with the federal government on this task,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

Prince Ahmed Ali Baloch, who is also a member of the Balochistan assembly from Lasbela and affiliated with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), told The Express Tribune that the government has been in touch with him and his father Prince Mohyuddin Baloch regarding travel arrangements for some months.

The family has asked for adequate arrangements for an ‘honourable return’. Khan left the country some months after the assassination of top Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in 2006.

Ahmed Ali said that Chief Minister Malik Baloch made attempts to have negotiations with the exiled Khan but that Mir Daud refused to meet him with that agenda.

Officials said that similar attempts were also made by then caretaker chief minister, Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Barozai last year but it did not produce any results as Mir Daud refused to trust the government.

The provincial minister for home and tribal affairs, Mir Sarfraz Bugti told reporters last week that his government is in the process of having peace negotiations with all hostile Baloch nationalist leaders.

Provincial spokesperson Jan Buledi has also revealed that negotiations were in progress to bring Baloch militants back into the mainstream political arena.

Khan’s family has recommended that a tribal jirga comprising chief of Sarawan Nawab Aslam Raisani, Chief of Jhalawan Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, Nawab Zulfikar Magsi and elders of notable Baloch and Pashtun tribes from Balochistan be sent to the UK to convince the Khan of Kalat to end his exile, Ahmed Ali said. Sources said that the government was considering the recommendations as well as other ways to resolve the issue.

It is pertinent to mention that the chiefs of Sarawan, Jhalawan along with Magsi played key role to instigate the Khan of Kalat to approach the international court of justice against his forefather’s decision of ceding his princely state of Kalat to Pakistan in 1948. He was also asked to form a government in exile of Balochistan in London to organise the Baloch nationalists’ movement worldwide.

Prince Mohyuddin Baloch, the father-in-law of Khan, has also been taken into confidence by the establishment to bring him back to the country.

Reconciliation: Govt hopes to bring Khan of Kalat home – The Express Tribune