KARACHI: Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, a veteran politician and head of Balochistan`s Marri clan, died after a protracted illness on Tuesday night. He was 86.

A relative of the Marri family told Dawn that the Baloch leader had been admitted to a private hospital last week after his condition deteriorated.

Although he had been suffering from back pain for several years which crippled his routine movement, a neurological problem causedhim to be admitted to the hospital, said the relative.

Nawab Marri had gone into coma a day earlier and never recovered.

Family sources said the date and time of his funeral and whether to bury him in his ancestral town of Kohlu or in Quetta would be decided later.

`His sons and many relatives are abroad and we are in contact with them to take a decision,` they added.