By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire inside a barbershop in a remote corner of southwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing five labourers from the country’s Punjab province in the latest assault targeting non-native workers in a region gripped by a decades-old separatist insurgency.
The attack unfolded in Mashkail, a sparsely populated town in Balochistan’s Washuk district near the Iranian border, according to Deputy Commissioner Abdul Majeed Sarparah. Armed men rode up to the shop and sprayed it with gunfire before fleeing, leaving all five victims dead at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds, police said.
“The incident took place in Mashkail town close to the Pakistan-Iran border area, when armed men riding motorcycles opened fire on shops where the labourers from Punjab were working,” Sarparah told reporters.
Washuk’s police superintendent, Javed Zehri, said the men worked as barbers and had travelled to Balochistan from various districts in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, located hundreds of miles to the east. No group immediately claimed responsibility, though authorities in the region routinely attribute such killings to separatist militants who view Punjabi migrant workers as economic outsiders and, at times, accuse them of acting as government informants.
Police and other security personnel arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting and transported the bodies to a government hospital in Mashkail. Officials said the remains would be moved to Quetta, the provincial capital, before being returned to the victims’ hometowns in Punjab once legal formalities were completed. Security forces launched a search operation in the area in an effort to track down those responsible.
The killings drew swift condemnation from Pakistan’s top leadership. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif each issued statements denouncing what they called a “terrorist attack on innocent labourers,” expressing condolences to the victims’ families and vowing that the violence would not weaken the government’s resolve, according to state-run Radio Pakistan. Balochistan’s chief minister, Sarfraz Bugti, echoed that sentiment, saying the victims were not merely outside workers but Pakistani citizens, and pledged that those responsible would face justice.
Zardari and Sharif both placed blame on what the government calls “Fitna al-Hindustan,” a term Pakistani officials use for militant networks they say are backed by India to carry out attacks inside the country. New Delhi has consistently denied such accusations.
A province on edge
Sunday’s shooting is the latest in a string of attacks that have made Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, one of the most dangerous places in the country for migrant laborers from Punjab. The region, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan, has been the site of a separatist insurgency for decades, one that has escalated markedly in recent years as militant groups target infrastructure projects, security installations, and workers from outside the province.
The pattern has grown grimly familiar. In September 2024, gunmen stormed an under-construction house in the Khuda-i-Abadan area of Panjgur and killed seven labourers, all from Multan. Two months earlier, in August 2024, 23 travellers were pulled from trucks and buses and shot in Musakhail district. That May, seven barbers from Punjab were gunned down near Gwadar. In February of this year, seven people were killed after being taken off a passenger bus in Barkhan district. And in March, four Punjabi labourers were shot dead in Kalat district.
The latest attack also comes as Pakistani security forces press an aggressive counterterrorism campaign across Balochistan. State media reported on Sunday that forces have killed 109 militants — described by officials as “khawarij terrorists” — since July 5, including seven fighters killed in the most recent operation. That tally has climbed steadily over the past week, with Radio Pakistan reporting three militants killed in one operation and four more in the Saran Tangi area in subsequent updates.
The campaign, known as Operation Shaban, is being carried out jointly by the Pakistan Army, the paramilitary Frontier Corps, and Balochistan Police. It was launched in response to a July 7 assault on a police checkpost in the Mangi Dam area, in which nine officers were killed and 18 others abducted at gunpoint. The captured officers were later found dead in the mountainous Zarghoon Gar area, bringing the number of police killed in that single episode to 27.
Security officials said Operation Shaban has yielded a substantial cache of weapons from militants killed in the fighting, including M4 rifles, submachine guns, and rocket launchers, along with mobile phones and other equipment. Officials have vowed the operation will continue “until the last terrorist is eliminated.”
Separately, Pakistani forces have also continued air and ground operations against the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, which the state refers to as “Fitna al-Khawarij,” according to state broadcaster PTV News.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
