Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani’s dream to win back his ancestral area – Mahargarh – from his traditional rival tribes by using the Frontier Corps (FC) seemed to have been shattered with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and the cabinet flatly refusing his proposal of placing FC under him.
A source in the federal cabinet told Pakistan Today that in a special cabinet meeting held on July 13 in Quetta, Raisani asked Gilani to place the FC under the provincial government but the premier along with Interior Minister Rehman Malik and other cabinet members strongly opposed to the idea, saying it was a federal force established under the Federal Force Act 1959 and could never be placed under a provincial government.
The source said even federal ministers from Balochistan including Mir Changez Khan Jamali and Sardar Muhammad Umar Gorgej opposed to the idea. Commenting on the issue, a senior official of Balochistan FC said Raisani was trying to get the FC placed under him for the last three years which was illegal.