Balochistan unrest: Senior BNP-M leader, guard gunned down in Khuzdar

Police constable and Afghan national slain in separate incidents.

QUETTA/ KHUZDAR:

A central leader of the Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal), Haji Athahullah Mohammedzai, and his armed guard were shot dead on Sunday in a targeted attack in Khuzdar district, about 300 kilometres from Quetta. A second guard was also injured in the attack.

Mohammedzai is the 75th BNP leader or activist to have been killed in a targeted attack in Balochistan over the last five years.

A well-known politician, Mohammedzai was on his way home from work when unidentified assailants on a motorcycle opened fire at his car. He received multiple bullet wounds. The attackers fled from the scene immediately. Mohammedzai and his guards were taken to District Headquarters Hospital Khuzdar where he and one of the guards was pronounced dead. Businesses and restaurants were closed following the news of the death.

Mohammedzai was president of the Anjuman-e-Tajeraan Khuzdar, a traders’ union, and a trader himself. “Khuzdar city was deserted as everyone closed their shops and hotels after hearing the news,” said Abdul Ghani, a local shopkeeper.

“He was a central councillor to the party,” said BNP Information Secretary Agha Hassan Baloch. “The targeted killing of Haji Athaullah is part of the continuous policy of state-backed groups to eliminate the BNP leadership.” Hassan added, “At least 75 BNP leaders and activists have been gunned down in different parts of Balochistan and not a single murder was investigated or the perpetrators brought to justice.”

Two men killed in Quetta

A police constable and an Afghan national were killed in two separate incidents of firing in the provincial capital while a bridge was blown up at the Quetta-Sibi highway on Sunday.

According to police, unidentified men tried to snatch a bike from police constable Muhammad Azam on Masjid Road, in the city’s centre. Azam resisted and was shot; he died on the spot and the men escaped with his bike.

Meanwhile, an Afghan national, Abdul Malik, was killed by unidentified assailants near the Pashtunabad area of Quetta. He was shot in the chest and head and died immediately.

Several Afghan nationals were killed in Quetta and the police are investigating these killings. It is sometimes hard to investigate such incidents as police need to visit the hometown of the victims to collect information regarding the murder,” Capital Police Quetta Abdul Razzaq Cheema said.

In a separate incident, militants attacked a bridge at the Quetta-Sibi highway near the Mach area of Bolan. According to Levies sources, explosive materials were planted beneath the bridge and remotely detonated. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack as yet.

Girl dies in landmine blast

A seven-year-old girl died and two of her friends were wounded in a landmine explosion in the Bugti Tribal Territory of Balochistan on Sunday.

A local official in Dera Bugti said three girls were walking in the Koh Balai area in Dera Bugti when one of the girls stepped on a landmine. Seven-year-old Saima Wali Mohammed Bugti died on the spot while two others, Shaista Bibi, aged seven, and Shazia Abdul Ghani, aged nine, sustained serious injuries.

Rescue workers and law enforcement personnel rushed to the spot and shifted the girls to a state-run hospital. “The injured girls are in a critical condition,” hospital sources said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2014.