KARACHI: Senior politician and Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri died at a private hospital here late on Tuesday night, Geo News reported.
Marri had been under treatment at the Liaquat National Hospital , where he had been admitted in a critical condition on June 6. He was 86.He was considered an inspiration by the radical Baloch nationalists. Marri was a leader of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) , a banned separatist organisation. He was also a key leader of the 1970s insurgency in Balochistan.
He spent many years in exile in Afghanistan and returned to the country after the left-wing government in Kabul fell.For the past many years, he had dissociated himself from practical politics, but for many radical Baloch nationalists he remained an icon.
He had received his early education in Kohlu and higher education from Aitchison College, Lahore.Marri had six sons — Balaach Marri, Jangaiz Marri, Hyrbyiar Marri, Gazain Marri, Hamza Marri and Mehran Marri.
His son Balaach Marri, who was leading the Baloch separatists movement, was killed in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border in 2007. Another of his sons, Nawab Hyrbyiar Marri, has taken political asylum in the United Kingdom and is leading a faction of the Baloch nationalists.
