QUETTA: Police on Thursday found the bodies of seven coal miners who were kidnapped last week in the Soorang area of Balochistan, officials said.
“The miners were abducted on July 7 in the Soorang area, 25 kilometres (16 miles) east of the provincial capital Quetta, and their bullet-ridden bodies were found dumped on a roadside in the hills of nearby Degari,” administration official Zafar Bokhari told AFP.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, which is fighting for independence from the federal government, had claimed responsibility for their kidnapping but there was no claim for their deaths, Bokhari said.
The miners were from the Swat valley, which is part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he added.
Local police said the miners had been shot dead overnight.
Baloch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the oil, gas and mineral resources in the province, which is one of the most neglected parts of Pakistan.
On Wednesday, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had accused paramilitary forces of involvement in a third of all disappearances in Balochistan, where the military has been accused of rights violations in its bid to put down the insurgency.
COMMENTS (12)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1712983198-0/iStock-1361391451-scaled-(1)1712983198-0-270x192.webp)
So what is difference between TTP and BLA/BRA that liberals support so much?
Thing to be notice last paragraph it 's clear who is responsible and 1 thing i want to say it 's not chief it's cheap justice.
O come on!!! These were not even Punjabis. These were poor Pashtun workers who left their own violence stricken region to make a Halal living and feed their families. As far as I know, Baloch and Pashtuns love each other. BLA, BRA and BLF have shown that they are nobody's friends. Terrorists don't have friends. By the way, please DO NOT say that Punjabis are responsible for this.
@Ather: What a shameful argument. ET must be ashamed to approve such a comment. Basically you are arguing that why they are killed as they are not Punjabis???. So in your view Killing of Punjabis is alright??. How could Allah be happy with us where we are arguing the ethnicities of the people that it is alright to kill some and it is not alright to kill others. Where is your Humanity right now that you are Apologetic to some while you have a different opinion about the Blood of others????. What type of People you have become ?. Also Most of the FC guys are from KPK and FC is operational in Balochistan. Most of the people of Punjab only serve in Rangers and they have their own Punjab Regiment which is the core of Punjabis not FC where more than 80 percent are from KPK.
Enlightened - by killing poor people you are not making a point !
This is a wake up call for the state to shun its ill-concieved policy of supression of the Balochis for the past six decades.
Its so sad taht these so called liberationists can turn so wild & inhuman to kill these poor, innocent coal miners to achieve their political objectives. Government has miserably failed in protection of fundamental rights of its citizens. Need some iron fist to get rid of these terrorists.
and what possibly one can acheive by killing innocent and poor coal miners????