As the killing of Baloch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti snowballed into a major political crisis, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf summoned the Army top brass on Friday to discuss the worsening security situation in Balochistan and the rest of the country.
The day-long, previously unannounced, Corps Commanders Conference presided over by Musharraf was held at the General Headquarters at Rawalpindi amid a complete nationwide strike to protest the killing of Bugti in an Army raid on August 26.
Pakistani authorities buried Bugti's decomposed body on Friday at his native place in Balochistan, disregarding appeals to hand it over to his family. The body was retrieved from a demolished cave six days after his death.
A defence ministry press release said the corps commanders 'reviewed the overall internal security environment in the country with particular reference to Balochistan'.
The meeting was attended by vice-chief of Army staff, all corps commanders and principal staff officers, it said.
There were few details of what transpired at the meeting but the campaign mounted by the opposition parties and rights groups is reported to have come up for discussion.
In the wake of Bugti's killing, the opposition parties and rights groups had charged that by crushing the nationalist rebels, Musharraf government was creating a condition similar to the one that had led to the formation of Bangladesh out of
East Pakistan in 1971.
The Corps Commanders, widely regarded as Musharraf's policy making body, held their unscheduled meeting in the backdrop of a mounting controversy over the way Bugti was buried.
The government's move of burying Bugti in the presence of a small number of people instead of handing it over to his relatives made Bugti's son Jamil to question whether the sealed and locked casket indeed contained the mortal remains
of the 79-year old Baloch leader.
The relatives were not satisfied with the display of Bugti's spectacles and wrist watch also. But the Coordinating Officer of Dera Bugti, the birthplace of Akbar Bugti, said anyone who is interested to verify further could get a DNA test done.
