IN HIS death, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, once a villain, became a martyr of the Baloch nationalist movement — one he has never been a part of except in the recent past when he took to the hills of Balochistan to fight back the Pakistani army.
The widespread protests against the killing of Bugti, who was chief minister of Baluchistan and chief of the largest Bugti tribe, point to the radical turn the Baloch nationalist movement is going to take. It will create sympathy for the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) that is engaged in raining missiles around the province.
The grand opposition, consisting of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Mutahida Majlis-i-Amal, too will exploit Bugti's killing to fan up its agitation for the ouster of President Pervez Musharraf who took a militaristic course that reminds of bitter lessons from the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.
Ironically, in his early days, Bugti had never joined the Baluch nationalist movement or the various alliances of nationalist groups formed in the country. After forming his own organisation, the Jamhoori Wattan Party, he became chief minister in 1989 and ran the province like an authoritarian patriarch.