QUETTA: A Pakistani truck driver, who rescuers initially thought was dead, was recovering on Tuesday after hospital staff receiving bodies realized he was alive despite being shot five times in one of the most widespread attacks in Balochistan by ethnic militants in years.
On Monday, Munir Ahmed was driving with three colleagues in a convoy of four trucks through the southern province of Balochistan.
The drivers did not notice anything amiss and had not heard of any violence until they were about an hour outside of the provincial capital, Quetta.
Suddenly, armed men crowded the dusty stretch of highway, waving at them to stop, ordering the drivers out of their trucks and lining them up on the roadside.
Ahmed, 50, began to recite Islamic verses in fear.
“We were all horrified,” he said.
The gunmen opened fire and threw the men’s bodies into a stream, leaving them for dead.
Meanwhile attackers along other roads were stopping buses, pulling off passengers and killing men in front of their families, the provincial chief minister later said.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an armed militant group seeking secession of the resource-rich province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, took responsibility for the assaults.
Authorities said at least 70 people were killed in the attacks and subsequent military operations, including 23 civilians pulled out of their vehicles.
Rescuers put Ahmed and the lifeless bodies of his three colleagues into a vehicle to take to hospital, where medical staff realized he had survived.
A nurse said he had been hit by five bullets in the arm and back but was in stable condition.
Lying flat in a hospital bed, far from home in Punjab with his arm heavily bandaged, Ahmed said his memory of the attack was hazy and he was upset by his colleagues’ deaths, uncertain what would happen next after such a violent disruption to his livelihood.
Truck driver thought dead in Pakistan roadside attack in Balochistan recovers in hospital
https://arab.news/42yyw
Truck driver thought dead in Pakistan roadside attack in Balochistan recovers in hospital
- Munir Ahmed was driving on a highway when he was targeted by armed men who shot him five times
- He says his memory of the attack is hazy, but he finds the death of fellow truck drivers upsetting
Pakistan orders uninterrupted electricity during Ramadan pre-dawn, sunset hours
- Power cuts to be shifted outside Sehri and Iftar timings across country
- Directive applies to all distribution companies including Karachi’s K-Electric
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s power ministry has ordered electricity distributors to ensure uninterrupted supply during pre-dawn and sunset meals in the holy month of Ramadan, according to an official directive issued this week, even as the country continues to grapple with chronic shortages and losses in its power sector.
Ramadan, which begins on Thursday in Pakistan, typically sees a sharp spike in household consumption during Sehri (pre-fast meal) and Iftar (meal at sunset), making outages during those hours politically sensitive in a country where electricity shortfalls and scheduled load shedding remain common.
Pakistan’s power sector has struggled for years with circular debt — unpaid bills and subsidies that cascade through the system — as well as electricity theft and distribution losses, forcing utilities to manage supply through rotating outages, especially in high-loss neighborhoods.
“The DISCOs have been directed to strictly avoid unannounced load shedding during the holy month of Ramadan,” a Power Division spokesperson said in a statement.
The latest directive issued on Feb. 17 applies nationwide, including Karachi’s privately run K-Electric utility, and requires adherence to announced load-shedding schedules to minimize disruptions during the month.
Under the standard operating procedures issued by the Ministry of Energy, all distribution companies must establish dedicated control rooms supervised by their chief executives to monitor supply and respond to complaints in real time.
Even in high-loss areas like neighborhoods where bill recovery is weak and outages are more frequent, utilities must maintain supply during Sehri and Iftar, shifting load management to other hours instead.
Authorities said the measures were also intended to prevent further buildup of arrears and system losses by aligning power supply with demand peaks while continuing anti-theft enforcement operations.
Pakistan frequently introduces special power management plans during Ramadan, when public frustration over outages tends to intensify and governments face pressure to ensure uninterrupted electricity for religious routines.
