Construction site attack: Five militants die in Turbat firefight

Attackers had damaged 2 bulldozers and snatched weapons of Levies personnel who were providing security.

QUETTA:

Paramilitary soldiers on Tuesday claimed to have killed five militants and recovered arms and ammunitions after a gun battle in the Buleida area of Turbat.

“Five militants and a Frontier Corps man died in an exchange of fire. Militants made away with three bodies and two injured companions,” a spokesperson for the Frontier Corps said in a statement.

The statement further said that a group of armed men in the uniform of security forces had attacked a makeshift camp of a construction company.

The attackers had damaged two bulldozers and snatched the weapons of the Levies personnel who were providing security to the construction company.

The district administration informed the FC about the incident which reached the area and threw around a cordon. “There was a heavy exchange of fire between the militants and the security forces that lasted for hours,” the spokesperson said.



The fallen FC man was identified as Subedar Samar Gul. The FC forces recovered a sniper rifle, three AK-47s and two G3 automatic rifles.

The spokesperson said that the militants wanted to put a stop to construction of a road in Buleida.

“FC soldiers seized two bodies who were wearing uniforms of the security forces. The militants would put on uniforms to kidnap people so that they could blame the FC,” the spokesperson claimed.

As a practice, Baloch nationalists blame the security forces for kidnapping Baloch political activists and subject them to torture at their detention cells set up illegally in Balochistan. The relatives of the missing people allege that in many cases kidnappers raided their houses in FC uniform and use official vehicles to whisk away their loved ones.

As a paramilitary force, FC is primarily responsible for the security of the border areas of Balochistan but it was given additional charge for maintaining order in many parts of Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2013.