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By Amir Mateen
TURBAT: The first news that I was told when I landed in Turbat was that there had been a rocket attack a day earlier on the Navy camp next to the airport.
On the way to this town of roughly 300,000 largely Baloch population, which is the second biggest city after Quetta in Balochistan, I was informed about more scary details: that roughly 10,000 Punjabi settlers have been forced to leave the town; that anybody could be shot anytime, particularly when wearing a trouser like I was; that 16 people, including eight policemen were ambushed in target killings in one year, two of them in July; that grenades were hurled at a police station a fortnight ago; that Pakistani anthem could not be recited in schools or the national flag hoisted in colleges; that any office symbolising the federation like the NADRA, PTCL or the National Bank could not be operated without the Frontier Corps (FC) protection. The drive to the city, such ghastly images in mind, felt longer than the 30 minutes that it took.
Yet, like always, it was not as bad as they tell you, particularly when one is in the protected company of local elders. The first impression that one gets is the contrast in economic disparity. Either one sees the wretched majority that cannot afford two meals a day or the huge mansions mostly in the outskirts that were reportedly owned by the gentry or smugglers of diesel and drugs.
On the surface, it seems just another shabby, pot-holed town that pockmark the barren, mountainous wilderness of Mekran. However, beneath this deceptive expanse lies the key to a myriad political problems that bug not just Quetta and Islamabad but ring alarm bells as far as Tehran, Kabul, India, Oman and even London and Washington. It is only 150 km from both the Iran border in the west and Gwadar on the Arabian Sea in the south — one route planned to link Iranian gas pipeline to the rest of Pakistan and the other proposed to open the Arabian Sea to China and the Central Asia through roads and railways.
The impediment to this grand agenda is that this town happens to be the most violent town in Balochistan after Quetta. “The Baloch issue cannot be resolved without appeasing the aspirations of our people,” said National Party’s President Senator Dr Maalick, whose party boycotted the last elections. “We need to be satisfied that we get a fairer share out of our ancestral largesse and we should be treated as equals in every respect.”
Mekran and its divisional capital Turbat happen to be the intellectual and political centre of Baloch nationalism. It has always had a political culture and shunned the repressive Sardari system of the rest of Baloch areas. And it is here that the battle between the moderates and extremists of the Baloch nationalism is being fought.
The moderates, in local parlance, are those like National Party (NP) and to some extent Akhtar Mengal’s Baloch National Party (BNP), who want the realisation of Baloch aspirations while working within the framework of Pakistan. The extremists are the Baloch separatists who want to win independent Balochistan through an armed struggle. On top of the separatists list is Nawab Khair Bux Marri’s Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). After the death of his son Balaach Marri, the younger Marri, Harbiar, is believed to be running the BLA. However, military sources insist that the grand old Nawab K B Marri despite his age remains the guiding spirit behind the BLA. Another militant outfit, the Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), is run by Nawab Akbar Bugti’s grandson Brahmadagh Bugti, allegedly from Qandahar.
However, the person who impacts the militant Baloch youth more than K B Marri and Brahmadagh is somebody that people in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi may not even know about. The new kid on the bloc is Dr Allah Nazar. “He has become a mythical figure among the young militants as he dares the Sardars like K B Marri and Brahmadagh Bugti,” said a local journalist on condition of anonymity. “This goes well with the middle class politics of Mekran and Khuzdar.”
Originally from Mashkay in Avaraan district, Dr Allah Nazar is believed to be the person calling the shots among the Baloch militants, particularly in Mekran, Khuzdar and Avaran. He is also accused of the recent killings of moderate Baloch leaders like Maula Bux Dashti, Liaquat Mengal, Rehmatullah and Khalil Tufail. Some nationalists allege that he may also be involved in the killing of BNP leader Habib Jalib in Quetta. However, intelligence sources say that Jalib may have been shot by the BLA, which avenged the killing of Balaach Marri, who was allegedly killed by Jalib’s Qaimkhawani tribe.
Whatever the truth, Dr Allah Nazar’s message to the moderates is clear: “I’ll come after anybody who talks about Pakistan.” He recently owned the killing of Turbat’s Nazim Maula Bux Dasti, saying that he was targeted because, one, he had sought a military operation against the militants and, two, he was rewarded as the best Nazim in Pakistan. The second count was seen as a proof of his closeness towards the establishment. His word or message is seen as a death warrant in Mekran and even senior Baloch leaders like Senators Dr Maalick and Hasil Bizenjo are believed to be on his hit list. He is the only one among the Baloch separatist leaders who is fighting it out while living in the mountains. This fits into the popular imagination of the Baloch way of fighting and puts him one up on Khair Bux, Harbiar Marri and Brahmadagh, who are operating from posh mansions in Karachi, London and Qandahar.
Allah Nazar got active in Baloch Student Organisation (BSO) politics while he was doing his medical degree at the Bolan Medical College in Quetta. He was picked up by security agencies when the Musharraf regime decided to clamp down the protests provoked by the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti. According to published accounts, Dr Allah Nazar Baloch was kept in custody for six months. He was allegedly “stripped naked and hung from the ceiling for hours on end, deprived of sleep for many days and given anaesthesia injections.” His photograph that shows him brought out on a stretcher is haunting. He was in hospital for three days and could not stand for two months. The myth goes that the day Allah Nazar got up, he looked up in the sky and swore to fight against the state of Pakistan till he died. He is doing precisely the same since then.
Military sources acknowledge that Musharraf went overboard in controlling the Baloch issues. But they also allege that Dr Allah Nazar too has an Indian connection. “We have proof that he is in competition with Brahmadagh and Harbiar in taking money from the Indians,” claimed an intelligence source. “What makes the present Baloch conflict different from the earlier insurgencies is the Indian factor.”
The Pakistan Army is trained to fight India. Any linkage with India transforms them into an action mode, as in the movie ‘Terminator,’ where they see the militants as the infra-red enemy that they have to terminate. Perhaps somebody needs to add the abort mode in the khaki robots, which should differentiate between the ‘enemy’ and the local political elements gone awry because of wrong actions. While security forces are capable of overkill when it comes to the Indian link, Dr Allah Nazar’s terrorism is not winning him any admirers among the ideologically driven nationalists either. In fact, most nationalists think that his extreme actions devoid of any humanism and ideology are harming the Baloch cause.
Special Report
TURBAT: The first news that I was told when I landed in Turbat was that there had been a rocket attack a day earlier on the Navy camp next to the airport.
On the way to this town of roughly 300,000 largely Baloch population, which is the second biggest city after Quetta in Balochistan, I was informed about more scary details: that roughly 10,000 Punjabi settlers have been forced to leave the town; that anybody could be shot anytime, particularly when wearing a trouser like I was; that 16 people, including eight policemen were ambushed in target killings in one year, two of them in July; that grenades were hurled at a police station a fortnight ago; that Pakistani anthem could not be recited in schools or the national flag hoisted in colleges; that any office symbolising the federation like the NADRA, PTCL or the National Bank could not be operated without the Frontier Corps (FC) protection. The drive to the city, such ghastly images in mind, felt longer than the 30 minutes that it took.
Yet, like always, it was not as bad as they tell you, particularly when one is in the protected company of local elders. The first impression that one gets is the contrast in economic disparity. Either one sees the wretched majority that cannot afford two meals a day or the huge mansions mostly in the outskirts that were reportedly owned by the gentry or smugglers of diesel and drugs.
On the surface, it seems just another shabby, pot-holed town that pockmark the barren, mountainous wilderness of Mekran. However, beneath this deceptive expanse lies the key to a myriad political problems that bug not just Quetta and Islamabad but ring alarm bells as far as Tehran, Kabul, India, Oman and even London and Washington. It is only 150 km from both the Iran border in the west and Gwadar on the Arabian Sea in the south — one route planned to link Iranian gas pipeline to the rest of Pakistan and the other proposed to open the Arabian Sea to China and the Central Asia through roads and railways.
The impediment to this grand agenda is that this town happens to be the most violent town in Balochistan after Quetta. “The Baloch issue cannot be resolved without appeasing the aspirations of our people,” said National Party’s President Senator Dr Maalick, whose party boycotted the last elections. “We need to be satisfied that we get a fairer share out of our ancestral largesse and we should be treated as equals in every respect.”
Mekran and its divisional capital Turbat happen to be the intellectual and political centre of Baloch nationalism. It has always had a political culture and shunned the repressive Sardari system of the rest of Baloch areas. And it is here that the battle between the moderates and extremists of the Baloch nationalism is being fought.
The moderates, in local parlance, are those like National Party (NP) and to some extent Akhtar Mengal’s Baloch National Party (BNP), who want the realisation of Baloch aspirations while working within the framework of Pakistan. The extremists are the Baloch separatists who want to win independent Balochistan through an armed struggle. On top of the separatists list is Nawab Khair Bux Marri’s Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). After the death of his son Balaach Marri, the younger Marri, Harbiar, is believed to be running the BLA. However, military sources insist that the grand old Nawab K B Marri despite his age remains the guiding spirit behind the BLA. Another militant outfit, the Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), is run by Nawab Akbar Bugti’s grandson Brahmadagh Bugti, allegedly from Qandahar.
However, the person who impacts the militant Baloch youth more than K B Marri and Brahmadagh is somebody that people in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi may not even know about. The new kid on the bloc is Dr Allah Nazar. “He has become a mythical figure among the young militants as he dares the Sardars like K B Marri and Brahmadagh Bugti,” said a local journalist on condition of anonymity. “This goes well with the middle class politics of Mekran and Khuzdar.”
Originally from Mashkay in Avaraan district, Dr Allah Nazar is believed to be the person calling the shots among the Baloch militants, particularly in Mekran, Khuzdar and Avaran. He is also accused of the recent killings of moderate Baloch leaders like Maula Bux Dashti, Liaquat Mengal, Rehmatullah and Khalil Tufail. Some nationalists allege that he may also be involved in the killing of BNP leader Habib Jalib in Quetta. However, intelligence sources say that Jalib may have been shot by the BLA, which avenged the killing of Balaach Marri, who was allegedly killed by Jalib’s Qaimkhawani tribe.
Whatever the truth, Dr Allah Nazar’s message to the moderates is clear: “I’ll come after anybody who talks about Pakistan.” He recently owned the killing of Turbat’s Nazim Maula Bux Dasti, saying that he was targeted because, one, he had sought a military operation against the militants and, two, he was rewarded as the best Nazim in Pakistan. The second count was seen as a proof of his closeness towards the establishment. His word or message is seen as a death warrant in Mekran and even senior Baloch leaders like Senators Dr Maalick and Hasil Bizenjo are believed to be on his hit list. He is the only one among the Baloch separatist leaders who is fighting it out while living in the mountains. This fits into the popular imagination of the Baloch way of fighting and puts him one up on Khair Bux, Harbiar Marri and Brahmadagh, who are operating from posh mansions in Karachi, London and Qandahar.
Allah Nazar got active in Baloch Student Organisation (BSO) politics while he was doing his medical degree at the Bolan Medical College in Quetta. He was picked up by security agencies when the Musharraf regime decided to clamp down the protests provoked by the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti. According to published accounts, Dr Allah Nazar Baloch was kept in custody for six months. He was allegedly “stripped naked and hung from the ceiling for hours on end, deprived of sleep for many days and given anaesthesia injections.” His photograph that shows him brought out on a stretcher is haunting. He was in hospital for three days and could not stand for two months. The myth goes that the day Allah Nazar got up, he looked up in the sky and swore to fight against the state of Pakistan till he died. He is doing precisely the same since then.
Military sources acknowledge that Musharraf went overboard in controlling the Baloch issues. But they also allege that Dr Allah Nazar too has an Indian connection. “We have proof that he is in competition with Brahmadagh and Harbiar in taking money from the Indians,” claimed an intelligence source. “What makes the present Baloch conflict different from the earlier insurgencies is the Indian factor.”
The Pakistan Army is trained to fight India. Any linkage with India transforms them into an action mode, as in the movie ‘Terminator,’ where they see the militants as the infra-red enemy that they have to terminate. Perhaps somebody needs to add the abort mode in the khaki robots, which should differentiate between the ‘enemy’ and the local political elements gone awry because of wrong actions. While security forces are capable of overkill when it comes to the Indian link, Dr Allah Nazar’s terrorism is not winning him any admirers among the ideologically driven nationalists either. In fact, most nationalists think that his extreme actions devoid of any humanism and ideology are harming the Baloch cause.
Special Report
