International   

Nationwide strike call in Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan, which limped back to normal on Thursday, is preparing for a shut down once again on Friday in response to a call for a country-wide strike as the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti continued to have political reverberations in Parliament and outside.

An all-party conference by the Opposition reiterated its call for an all-Pakistan strike on September 1 in protest against the Bugti killing.

Quetta was incident-free after days of violence. Traffic, which had come to a standstill on highways connecting the province to the rest of the country, and within Balochistan, began moving freely again. Schools remained shut but banks opened cautiously. But fears of renewed violence during Friday shutdown remained.

On Wednesday, the Government flew a team of journalists to Kohlu in Balochistan to show how hard army engineers were working to shift rocks at the cave site where the Baloch leader was killed in a military operation last Saturday.

In Islamabad, the all-party conference called by the Opposition had a surprise speaker, when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addressed them over telephone from abroad.

He urged Opposition parliamentarians to step up pressure on the Government, suggesting that they, and members of all Provincial Assemblies, submit their resignations immediately.

The thinking behind this strategy is that the resulting vacuum in Parliament and in the Provincial Assemblies will create a constitutional and political crisis and force its hand to call fresh elections.

It would leave the electoral college incomplete, and thus pre-empt any move by President Pervez Musharraf to seek re-election from the Assemblies.

Mr. Sharif's call has sent the parties into a huddle, with the Baloch nationalist parties enthusiastically backing the proposal. But not all parties are agreed on this strategy.

Sit-in demonstration

In the National Assembly, the Opposition walked out and announced a sit-in demonstration outside the parliament buildings on Friday to protest the Speaker's decision to allow ruling party members to speak on an adjournment motion that the Opposition moved on Nawab Bugti's death.

At a press conference later, leaders of the People's Party of Pakistan asked why Parliament had not been taken into confidence about a political settlement reported to have been reached last year between ruling party emissaries and Nawab Bugti, and about the subsequent deadlock in this deal.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Iran: E.U. in a dilemma
Nationwide strike call in Pakistan
In control, says Sri Lankan Army
Australia to bolster forces
Relocation plan in Uganda
First woman space tourist
U.S. bid to oust Chavez
Cap on gas emissions
Death sentence upheld
Warren Buffett weds

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu