Crime roundup: Four drug peddlers killed in Quetta clash

Body of one of nine men kidnapped on Monday found in Killa Saifullah

QUETTA: Four drug peddlers were killed and three injured in a violent clash in Quetta’s suburban Kechi Beig area on Wednesday.

“A brawl between two groups of drug peddlers turned violent and they opened fire at each other,” SSP Imran Qureshi told reporters. “Four drug peddlers were killed on the spot and another three were wounded,” he added.

The police shifted the casualties to the Provincial Sandeman Hospital where police surgeon Dr Noor Baloch confirmed that they have received four bodies and three injured.

Three of the victims have been identified as Noor Ahmed, Muhammed Qasim and Abid Nazir. “They all belong to Quetta and peddle drugs on the streets,” SSP Qureshi said.The police said they have registered a case and investigation is ongoing.

Separately, the body of a government official was found dumped in Killa Saifullah district on Wednesday. The official, along with eight others, was kidnapped at gunpoint from a passenger coach and a car in Killa Saifullah on Monday. The kidnappers had later released a student and the driver of the car.

“The body of one of the kidnapped men, identified as Liaquat Ali, was found dumped in an uninhabited place in Killa Saifullah,” Deputy Commissioner Asif Khan told The Express Tribune. “The deceased was a Pakistan Air Force official and was shot multiple times in the upper torso and head,” said MS District Headquarters Hospital.

The police, Levies and Frontier Corps have been combing Killa Saifullah and its adjoining areas for the kidnappers since Monday.

Home Secretary Akbar Durrani said the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan might have kidnapped the men to avenge a deadly raid on a stockpile of their weapons in the same region. Two TTP would-be suicide bombers were killed in the raid.

Meanwhile, the police said they have found a four-day-old dead body in the Saddar area of Quetta.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2014.