QUETTA: At least eight people, including two Afghan women, were killed in separate shooting incidents in a southwestern Pakistani district that borders Iran, a police official said this week.
Both incidents took place on Monday and in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The first incident took place near the Chedgi border crossing with Iran, located around 80 kilometers from Panjgur city, Deputy Superintendent of Police Javed Ahmed said. Armed men ambushed what he said were a group of “state-backed” locals working near the border. He did not elaborate further about their affiliation nor the nature of their work.
“After an intense gunbattle between the attackers and the local residents, six people were killed,” Ahmed told Arab News on Monday. “Armed men torched two vehicles before leaving the area.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but ethnic Baloch separatist groups, the most prominent among them the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), often target tribal leaders and local residents that are backed by the state.
Ahmed said families of the deceased did not bring the bodies to a hospital for autopsy as the terrain there is mountainous and the roads are in a dilapidated condition. Instead, the victims’ relatives buried the bodies in their hometown close to the Iran border.
