New Delhi, Aug. 28: India today needled Pakistan over the killing of Baluch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, prompting Islamabad to remind Delhi of “home truths”.

India told Pakistan it should address the unrest in Baluchistan through dialogue and not military force.

Delhi described the death of Bugti, who was killed in an army ambush, as a “tragic loss to the people of Baluchistan and Pakistan”.

It handed President Pervez Musharraf a piece of advice: political issues are not resolved by force.

A bristling Islamabad, which has often accused Delhi of fanning unrest in Baluchistan, hit back by terming the advice unwarranted. “India should focus on putting its own house in order rather than commenting on the internal affairs of other countries,” the Pakistan foreign office said in Islamabad.

Pakistan reminded India about the “insurgencies in the Northeast, saying Delhi’s “purported concern for the peoples of other countries is ill- advised”.

But the Indian foreign ministry said Saturday’s military operation, which killed Bugti and his two grandsons, underlined the need for a peace dialogue between Islamabad and the Baluch people.

“Military force can never solve political problems,” the ministry spokesperson said.

Delhi described Bugti as a leader of stature who had played a key role in Pakistani politics for four decades. “His death leaves a vacuum that will be difficult to fill.”

Indian officials said the use of heavy military equipment, including helicopter gunships and fighter jets, to quell the rebel Baluch tribesmen was not acceptable.

Delhi believes that the people of Baluchistan, where local tribes have waged a war against the security forces, have a right to the region’s vast natural gas resources that are exploited to feed other Pakistani provinces.

Baluch crowds have often attacked the gas pipelines in protest against the inequality in development.

The BJP today explicitly linked the Baluchistan issue with Kashmir.

Condemning the killing of Bugti, the party said, “The parameters by which Pakistan wants (the) issue of autonomy to be judged in Kashmir are the same standards we should follow vis-à-vis Baluchistan. The Indian government’s silence under the circumstances is very curious.”