Balochistan violence: Gunmen kill JUP leader in Quetta

Two shopkeepers shot dead separately; two bodies found in Mastung.

QUETTA:

A leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) was killed in a firing incident on Saryab Road in Quetta on Friday.

The provincial leader, identified as Maulana Muhammad Qasim, was also the Khateeb of Jamia Masjid Noorani. It had earlier been reported that Qasim was the provincial chief.

He was on his way to lead Friday prayers when he was targeted by unidentified assailants on motorbikes. The body was shifted to the Sandeman Hospital for autopsy. “He was shot in the head and neck,” doctors at the hospital told reporters.

Markets in the area were shut down after the incident and protesters burnt tyres on the road.

Talking to reporters, JUP’s Balochistan chapter president Abdul Qudus Sasoli said it was not the first incident where JUP leaders had been targeted. Party leaders Iftikhar Habibi, Rafiq Sasoli and Maulana Kabir Qambrani were also killed under similar circumstances in Quetta over the past five months. “The government and law enforcement agencies have failed to protect the lives of the common people in Quetta. No one is safe here,” he claimed.

Earlier, two people were shot dead after assailants barged into a medical store and shoe shop on Mecangi Road.

Bodies found in Mastung

Two mutilated bodies were found in the Kanak area of Mastung, about 40 kilometres off Quetta, on Friday.

According to an official of the Balochistan Levies, some passers-by spotted two bodies dumped in a deserted location in Kanak – the electoral constituency of Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani – and informed the Levies Station.

The bodies were initially taken to a nearby state-run hospital in Mastung and later shifted to the Sandeman Hospital Quetta for autopsies.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had earlier directed the Balochistan Levies and province’s police chiefs to lodge FIRs for the recovery of bodies and submit the challans before the court within a determined time.

The Balochistan government has claimed before the Supreme Court that the number of mutilated bodies recovered has declined in recent months. According to them, over 300 mutilated and bullet-riddled bodies have so far been found dumped in different parts of the province, and a few cases in this regard were registered as well.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VFBMP), informed the court that all those whose bodies were found in the province were missing persons.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2012.