Gwadar violence: 3 killed in ethnically-motivated attack

The three men from Punjab were abducted from a stone crushing plant before being killed.

QUETTA:

Gunmen killed three labourers after abducting them from a stone crushing plant in the Sunt Sar area of Gwadar district on Thursday.

According to the Balochistan Levies, gunmen made their way into the plant and seized four men, including three labourers hailing from Punjab. The men were driven to the Sunt Sar area, some 15 kilometres from Gwadar city, where the labourers were killed.

The fourth man, a government contractor, was taken to an unknown place. He was identified as Haji Sher Khan from South Waziristan Agency. The gunmen also set the plant on fire before leaving the place.

The Balochistan Levies shifted the bodies to the District Headquarters Hospital for autopsy. The slain men were identified as Bilal, Naseem and Mohammad Liaqat, all from Muzaffargarh district of Punjab.

Gwadar Assistant Commissioner Munir Ahmed Mosiani confirmed the incident to The Express Tribune, saying that many local residents also worked at the stone crushing plant which was set up 11 years ago.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the gruesome killings – but Baloch insurgents had been blamed for similar ethnically-motivated violence in the restive province.  Police are investigating the incident.

In other violence gunmen killed two religious scholars in Panjgour district near the border with Iran. Hafiz Abdul Tahir and Hafiz Abdul Zahir were travelling to Panjgour city when gunmen sprayed their car with bullets. The two clerics died on the spot.

Law enforcers shifted the bodies to a nearby state-run hospital for medico-legal formalities. It wasn’t immediately known who killed the clerics and why.

Separately, a man was killed and his son wounded in a firing incident in Mosa Colony on Quetta’s Sariab Road. According to police, Ghulam Haider and his son Muhammad Zafar were travelling in a car when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle. Haider died on the spot and his son sustained injuries. Police shifted the casualties to the Civil Hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2013.