QUETTA: A retired chief justice of the Balochistan High Court was shot dead in Kharan city in southwestern Pakistan, police said on Saturday, with the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claiming responsibility for the attack.
The BLA is the most prominent of a number of separatist groups operating against the Pakistani state in Balochistan. The province has seen a decades-long insurgency against what separatists call the unfair exploitation of resources in the mineral-rich region.
Pakistani security forces have been the main focus of the groups, but in recent years they have also targeted Chinese interests, given Beijing’s increasing economic footprint in the region.
Friday’s killing of the retired justice, Muhammad Noor Meskanzai, took place while he was offering evening prayers inside a mosque near his residence. He served as chief justice of the Balochistan high court from December 2014 to August 2018 and was appointed chief justice of Pakistan’s Shariat Court in 2019.
“The attackers carrying 9mm pistols fired 10 rounds from the window of the mosque and four rounds hit the former chief justice, while his cousin named Hajji Mumtaz was injured in the attack,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Rakhshan Division, Nazir Kurd, told Arab News.
“He [Meskanzai] was shifted to the nearby DHQ Hospital but he succumbed to his injuries when arrangements were being made to shift him to Quetta,” Kurd said.
The judge had escaped a bomb attack in February 2015 when his convoy was targeted near Kharan.
“We accept responsibility for the attack in Kharan on Muhammad Noor Meskanzai,” the BLA said in a statement on Friday. “Muhammad Noor Meskanzai was a high profile target of BLA.”
Chief Minister of Balochistan, Mir Abdul Qudus Bizenjo, strongly condemned the attack and ordered the formation of special teams to arrest the suspects.
Lawyer organizations in Quetta, the provincial capital, and other districts of Balochistan announced a boycott of court proceedings today, Saturday, and announced three days of mourning, calling for a judicial commission to probe the attack.
“Judges and lawyers are being targeted in Balochistan for the past many years. We will protest if the government doesn’t arrest the killers of Mr. Meskanzai,” Ajmal Kakar, president of the Quetta Bar Association, told Arab News.
In a separate attack, a roadside bomb on Friday killed at least three people in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province, government officials said.
The blast near the town of Mastung injured six others, including two police. No one claimed responsibility for the blast.