Pak: 4 labourers from Punjab killed in Balochistan

Kalat [Pakistan], March 23 (ANI): Four labourers from Pakistan's Punjab were shot dead by unidentified armed assailants in the Mangochar area of Kalat district of Balochistan, ARY News reported on Saturday.

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According to reports, the victims identified as Zeeshan, Khalid, Dilawar Hussain, and Muhammad Amin, all from Sadiqabad, Punjab. They were attacked by armed men on motorcycles at iftar time, as per ARY News.

The labourers died on the spot, while the attackers managed to flee. Police and rescue officials rushed to the scene and shifted the bodies to a local hospital.

The victims were reportedly drilling a tube well for a local landowner.

Meanwhile, the police have registered an FIR against leaders of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), and their armed workers for inciting violence, attacking hospitals and officials and holding violent protests.

According to the Quetta commissioner's office, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) organised a protest on March 21, demanding the return of the bodies of terrorists killed during the Jaffar Express operation.

However, the protest turned violent, with protesters and their armed accomplices opening fire and pelting stones at police, resulting in the deaths of three people, including an Afghan citizen.

The authorities had demanded that the Baloch Yakjehti Committee hand over the bodies to identify the real culprits, but the BYC leaders refused, allegedly knowing that they themselves were responsible for the killings, as per ARY News.

Later, at the request of the families of the deceased, police recovered the bodies from the BYC's illegal possession and handed them over to the victims' families.

Earlier on March 11, the Jaffar Express, was on its way from Quetta in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it came under intense firing in Balochistan, Dawn News reported.

On March 13, ISPR Pakistan DG Lt Gen Sharif Chaudhry said that the Jaffar Express clearance operation, launched after the train's hijacking in Balochistan, was complete. He added that all rebels, 33 in total, at the site of the attack had been killed.

"On March 11 in Bolan, terrorists targeted a railroad track around 1pm and blew it up and stopped the Jaffar Express. According to railway officials, the train had 440 passengers," he said while speaking in an interview on Dunya News. (ANI)

(The story has come from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by the Tribune Staff.)