Mastermind of attack on Mamnoon’s son killed

BLA commander Raziq Marri was also responsible for killing Chinese engineers and labourers

QUETTA: Paramilitary troops have killed a notorious commander of a proscribed Baloch separatist group who had masterminded several deadly attacks and an abortive assassination attempt on the son of President Mamnoon Hussain.

The Frontier Corps received intelligence about the presence of some militants in Hub, a town on the border between Sindh and Balochistan. A raiding party of FC and other law enforcement agencies was quickly mobilised.

“When the forces mounted a search operation, the militants holed up in a compound opened fire on them,” said a spokesperson for the paramilitary force. “The forces returned the fire and in the ensuing gunfight three armed men were killed.”

One of the dead was later identified as Raziq Marri, a commander of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the deadliest of all separatist groups fighting a low-key insurgency in Balochistan since 2004.

Raziq Marri was the mastermind of the abortive attempt to assassinate Salman Mamnoon, the son of President Mamnoon Hussain, in Hub on May 24, 2015. He and his group were also responsible for deadly attacks on Chinese engineers and day labourers from Punjab.

“Raziq Marri was responsible for killing 30 Chinese engineers and nine labourers from Punjab in 2006. He had also organised countless rocket attacks in various cities,” the spokesman added.

Security forces have intensified combing operations across Balochistan following the August 8 suicide attack at Quetta’s Civil Hospital that killed 74 people, mostly lawyers. According to official stats, more than 70 suspects have been detained in the combing operations jointly conducted by the FC, police and intelligence agencies in Quetta and its outskirts.

Provincial government spokesman Anwarul Haq Kakar refused to share details of the operations citing security reasons. Sources, however, told The Express Tribune that 113 suspects have been rounded up in 13 combing operations in Quetta and its suburbs, while another 500 suspects have been taken into custody from elsewhere in Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2016.