According to police, gunmen opened indiscriminate fire in Kuchlak Bazaar, some 15 kilometres from the provincial capital, killing policeman Gulzar Ahmed on the spot and injuring passerby Mehmood Ahmed.
“Gulzar was on duty when he was attacked,” a police official told The Express Tribune. The assailants managed to escape from the scene after the attack, he added. “It appears to be a targeted killing.”
Police registered a case and mounted a manhunt for the unidentified killers.
Separately, two students of an Islamic madrassa were killed in the Pashtunabad neighbourhood of Quetta. The students – Habibullah and Dad Muhammad – were leaving the madrassa when gunmen targeted them, a police official told The Express Tribune. It was immediately clear why not the pair was targeted.
Meanwhile, two persons were gunned down in the border town of Chaman. Their bodies were taken to the Civil Hospital, where they were identified as Muhammad Yousaf and Barat Khan, both Afghan nationals.
Strike in Quetta
A shutter-down strike was observed in the provincial capital on Sunday to protest the assassination of ANP leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour. The Balochistan chapter of ANP had given the call for the strike. The strike call was supported by several other parties in the province including the National Party and Balochistan National Party.
All business centres, markets and shopping malls on Jinnah Road, Shahra-e-Iqbal, Liaquat Bazaar, Abdul Sattar Road, Double Road and Prince Road remained shuttered throughout the day. Traffic across the city remained thin as well.
ANP’s Balochistan chapter has announced three-day mourning in the province. Black flags were hoisted at the party’s offices in Quetta and other towns, and ANP leaders and workers wore black armbands.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2012.
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