In the latest grim chapter of the seemingly ceaseless violence scarring Pakistan’s vast Balochistan province, the bullet-riddled bodies of three migrant workers who had been kidnapped were found near the port city of Gwadar on Thursday. According to a report in Dawn, an English-language Pakistani daily newspaper, unknown gunmen abducted the laborers on Wednesday night at a stone-crushing plant in the town of Sansar, about 45 miles north of Gwadar. A fourth man, believed to be the plant’s owner, was also abducted, but his fate is unclear.
“Gunmen came during the night and attacked. They set fire to machinery at the plant, kidnapped the owner and three laborers,” Agence France-Presse quoted police official Dostain Baloch as saying. “They took away all of them and later on, during the night, they killed the three laborers and discarded their bodies. The owner is still with [the gunmen].”
Balochistan, a huge, sparsely populated and undeveloped region that occupies the southwestern part of Pakistan bordering Iran, is believed to possess significant oil-and-gas reserves. However, the economic development of the region has been slowed by the Pakistani government’s brutal crackdown on a nationalist insurgency movement.
The insurgents demand at least autonomy from Islamabad and a larger share of the oil-and-gas revenue generated locally. Some Baloch have more ambitious dreams -- a political union of ethnic Baloch spread out across Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Zia Ur Rehman, a Karachi, Pakistan-based security analyst, told the International Business Times that some key insurgent groups such as the Baloch Liberation Front and Balochistan Liberation Army want complete independence from Pakistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment