QUETTA: Unidentified gunmen on Sunday targeted a barber shop in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province and killed five workers who belonged to the eastern Punjab province, police said, amid an ongoing spate of violence in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least developed province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been the site of a long-running separatist insurgency that has intensified in recent years.
The latest killings of ethnic Punjabi workers occurred in a deserted town of Mashkail, located some 300 kilometers from Balochistan’s Washuk city, when armed men riding motorbikes opened fire on the workers inside a barber shop in Mashkail.
“Five laborers were killed in the latest targeted killings,” Washuk Superintendent of Police Javed Zehri told Arab News.
“They belonged to various districts of Punjab province.”
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the region has frequently witnessed kidnappings of and attacks targeting foreign nationals, infrastructure projects, security forces, police and non-native Pakistanis, whom the separatists accuse of spying for the state.
“The bodies [of the deceased barbers] were dispatched to Quetta from where they will be sent to their native districts,” Majeed Sarparah, Washuk deputy commissioner, told Arab News.
The attack came amid a spike in militant violence in the region, where Pakistani security forces have killed 105 militants since July 5, Pakistani state media reported on Sunday, after militants killed over 40 people, mostly security personnel, in attacks this month.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned Sunday’s attack on the laborers.
“The martyred individuals were not just Punjabi laborers but they were citizens of Pakistan,” he said. “Criminals involved in terrorism will be brought to justice.”
In Sept. 2024, unidentified gunmen had stormed a residential compound in Panjgur district and killed seven laborers belonging to the Punjab province, according to authorities. In a similar attack, armed men had gunned down seven hair salon workers in Balochistan’s Gwadar district in May 2024.
