Angry Family Boycott Funeral of Pakistan Chieftain

The tribal chieftain killed by the Pakistani army was buried yesterday in a hurried and mysterious ceremony likely to foment further unrest following five days of widespread rioting.

A cheap coffin sealed with Chinese padlocks said to contain the remains of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 79, was lowered into a desert grave near his fortress in a remote corner of Baluchistan province.

Bugti's death one week ago during a military attack on a cave where he was sheltering triggered province-wide upheaval that left three dead, roads blocked by furious supporters and dozens of businesses destroyed. Yesterday the controversy followed him into the ground.

Only a small clutch of officials, elders and journalists attended the funeral due to a boycott by Bugti's enraged family, which wanted to bury him in the provincial capital Quetta. "They have killed my father, now they are deciding where to bury him," said his son, Jamil.

Authorities fuelled the anger by refusing to open the coffin, saying the remains were rotten and maggot-infested. But they insisted that Bugti, nicknamed "the Tiger of Baluchistan", was inside. "The body was badly decomposed. It was not in a condition to have been shown," local official Samad Lasi told reporters, displaying Bugti's watch, wallet and spectacles. An Islamic cleric who led the prayers said he had also seen the body.

But some Bugti supporters accused President General Pervez Musharraf of trying to conceal the manner of his death; others doubted he was inside the casket. "This will create doubts. I think he is alive," said Juma Khan in the local bazaar.

Streets across Baluchistan were empty in response to a general strike called by the opposition. In Islamabad the opposition boycotted the National Assembly while Gen Musharraf met army commanders at military headquarters in Rawalpindi to discuss security. Officials downplayed the meeting as routine.

Gen Musharraf has faced criticism since the death of Bugti, a leader of the violent Baluch campaign for greater autonomy and a larger share of profits from the province's gas and oil wealth. Bugti, a colourful chieftain who vaunted his English education and love of books, was not always a rebel and accumulated many enemies over the years. Jailed for killing an uncle in 1960, he angered other Baluch tribal leaders in the 1970s and 80s by serving as both provincial governor and chief minister.

In recent years the chieftain returned to the nationalist cause and retreated to his home in Dera Bugti, where his fighters attacked gas pipelines and vigorously attacked the military.