KARACHI, Aug 28: The government and the Jamhoori Watan Party traded serious allegations on Monday as the key question about the location of the body of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, who was reportedly killed in a military operation about 48 hours earlier, remained unanswered.

JWP central information secretary Amanullah Kanrani told Dawn from Quetta that his party had reason to believe that Nawab Bugti’s body was lying in the cantonment’s Combined Military Hospital.

“The government initially contacted us and said it was prepared to bury Nawab Bugti in his ancestral graveyard in Dera Bugti. But when his family members insisted that the body be handed over to them for burial, the government immediately took a different tack and announced that Nawab Bugti’s body was being taken out from under the rubble of the cave that had collapsed during the Oct 26 military offensive,” he said.

Mr Kanrani’s charges drew prompt denial from the Balochistan government when Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf told a press conference in Quetta that Nawab Bugti’s body was not in the CMH.

“All possible efforts are being made to find Nawab Bugti’s body in the cave that collapsed during the Kohlu operation. The body will be handed over to the bereaved family as soon as it is found,” he said.

However, the view that Nawab Bugti’s human remains are in government custody finds favour with veteran politician Sherbaz Khan Mazari who issued a press statement to Dawn saying that the slain tribal chief’s body had been taken to Islamabad.

But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao insisted that Nawab Bugti’s body was not in government custody.

Responding to Dawn queries as to how the bodies of at least five army officers, who were buried on Monday with full military honours, had been taken out of the debris of the cave that collapsed during the Oct 26 military operation, Mr Sherpao said: “Army officers were standing at the mouth of the cave when it collapsed. The reason why the body of Nawab Bugti has not yet been recovered is that he was apparently well inside the cave,” he said.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan told Dawn that the cave under whose rubble lay Nawab Bugti’s body had been custom-built, with heavily fortified bunkers and a lot of ammunition.

“The cave was about 100 feet long and had winding passages. There was at least one room in the cave with a ventilation opening. Since the Oct 26 military operation intensified after sundown, there is no question of firing rockets or missiles at the cave.

What probably happened was that when army men sought to enter the cave, they received heavy fire from inside.

They naturally returned fire and then something in the cave exploded. As a result, the cave collapsed, killing not only the servicemen at its mouth but also the inmates,” he said.

Maj-Gen Sultan said finding Nawab Bugti’s remains would be a long, torturous process because “there is no possibility of using heavy machinery like cranes or excavators”.

“There is no proper road to the cave. Army engineers are making manual efforts to dig the cave. The process will of necessity be time-consuming,” he said.