Quetta: Two labourers were killed and three others injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) planted by the roadside was remotely detonated against a vehicle carrying a contractor and four labourers in Wali Tangi area, about 30 kilometres from Quetta, on August 16, Sunday, the police said.
The blast occurred as the pick-up van was travelling towards the suburban area. The police officials said that unidentified attackers targeted the vehicle carrying the contractor and labourers who were being taken to the area for construction work on tube wells. Such incidents of targeted killing of labourers from outside Balochistan, particularly Punjab, have happened in the past also.
Various armed Baloch groups, including the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), has repeatedly issued warnings to such workers, as also contractors, to desist from working on sites owned by the government. The armed rebels have repeatedly targeted infrastructure owned by the government. Electricity towers, gas pipelines and bridges have been the main targets, besides vehicles carrying minerals to places like Karachi and elsewhere outside of the province.
Senior Superintendent of Police Asif Ghafoor said the IED had been planted along the roadside and detonated remotely as the vehicle passed through the area. “Five people, including the contractor, were injured in the blast and shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta,” he said, adding that two of the injured later succumbed to their wounds.
Police officials said the powerful explosion badly damaged the vehicle. Police and Frontier Corps (FC) personnel reached the site soon after the blast, cordoned off the area and shifted the injured to the hospital. Security forces subsequently launched a search operation in the area to trace those involved in the attack.
The incident came amid a deteriorating security situation in Balochistan, where violence recorded a sharp increase last month, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). Meanwhile, unidentified armed men shot dead a former Afghan Army commander in Killi Raisani, a locality on the outskirts of Quetta, police said. The incident occurred when armed men riding a motorcycle targeted the former commander while he was passing through the area.
“Armed men riding a motorcycle targeted the former Afghan commander while he was passing through the area,” Adil Shah, a senior police officer at Shalkot police station, said.
He identified the victim as Haji Hazrat Ullah alias Rorad Achakzai, a former commander of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. According to police, Hazrat Ullah had migrated to Quetta in 2021 and had been living in Killi Raisani since then. Further investigation into the killing was under way, while police were working to determine the motive and identify those responsible.
Incidentally, some former Afghan military personnel have, of late, been reported to have started working for Pakistani security agencies. They have been found to take up arms against various Baloch nationalist groups in the region. This has become a reason for friction and animosity with these groups.
The two incidents came against the backdrop of a marked deterioration in Balochistan’s security situation. According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies’ (PICSS) monthly security assessment released on July 31, Balochistan recorded the most significant deterioration in its security situation during the previous month.
The report said the overall death toll from violence in Balochistan increased by 241 per cent, rising from 109 in June to 372 in July, underscoring the sharp escalation in violence across the province. The latest attacks, including the roadside IED blast targeting labourers and the targeted killing of a former Afghan commander, further highlight the continuing security challenges confronting Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, which is evidently disintegrating from the control of Pakistan.
