Four Nato oil tankers were torched and a cleaner was killed by unidentified militants in the Ganja Dohri area of Mastung District, some 50 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital.
According to officials, four oil tankers were returning from Afghanistan to Karachi after providing fuel to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) troops stationed there, when a group of assailants on motorcycles opened fire on them, forcing the drivers to stop on the RCD highway near the Ganja Dohri area.
As a result, two helpers received serious bullet wounds in the attack. The assailants set the oil tankers on fire and fled the scene.
The police and other law enforcement agencies rushed to the spot after the incident and took the injured to a nearby state-run hospital in Mastung where one of the injured, identified as Zakir Mehmood, was pronounced dead on arrival.
Three empty oil tankers were completely gutted while one was partially damaged, a local police official told The Express Tribune.
The injured was identified as Gul Bagh who was shifted to Quetta for treatment. Both victims belonged to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. No one claimed to have carried out the attack.
Balochistan is the second largest route for Nato supplies. The oil tankers and containers carrying military hardware and fuel for Isaf and Nato forces deployed in Afghanistan are regularly targeted in this region.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2011.
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