Five people killed in incidents of violence

Violence continues unabated in the volatile Balochistan province where five more people were killed in separate incidents during the last 24 hours.

A 10-year-old girl was killed in a landmine blast in Jaffarabad district. Unidentified miscreants had planted a landmine in Ghot Band Ali in Sundrani. Ten-year-old Sharifa Bugti was passing by the area when she stepped on the mine. She suffered injuries and was rushed to the nearby hospital where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival. Her body was handed over to the family after medico-legal formalities. Police have registered a case and started investigations.

Separately, two persons, identified as Qadir Bakhsh and Abdul Samad, were shot by unknown gunmen in the Mashod Bazdad area of Awaran district. The attackers were riding on a motorcycle and managed to escape after the incident. Official sources said that the motive behind the double murder was old enmity.  The bodies were sent to hospital for autopsy and a case has been registered against unidentified persons.

In another incident that took place in the Ghot Kareem Baksh area of Ghandakha, unidentified persons gunned down a man identified as Muhammad Nazar and fled from the scene. Nazar’s body was handed over to his family after a postmortem and the local police are investigating the incident.

Meanwhile, a bank cashier and a security guard were shot dead during a robbery in Mand Bulo district on Wednesday.

Six masked men barged into a bank branch and took the staff and customers hostage at gunpoint, Levies officials told The Express Tribune. The bank’s guard Abdul Ghafar and cashier Abdul Hamid tried to resist but the robbers opened fire and killed them both to make off with Rs4 million. “We have launched a manhunt for the robbers,” a senior Levies official told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2010.