Gunmen killed 20 miners and wounded another seven in Pakistan’s southwest, a police official said yesterday, drawing condemnation from authorities as a search was launched for the attackers.
The attack in Balochistan Province came days ahead of a major security summit in the capital.
The gunmen stormed the accommodations at the coal mine in Duki District late on Thursday night, rounded up the men and opened fire, police official Hamayun Khan Nasir said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The attackers also fired rockets and lobbed grenades at the coal mine, and damaged the machinery used for the mining before fleeing, Nasir said.
Most of the men attacked were from Pashtun-speaking areas of Balochistan. Three of the dead and four of the wounded were Afghan.
Local shop owners pulled their shutters down to observe a daylong strike against the killing.
Photo: AFP
No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but the suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army.
Authorities said that police and paramilitary forces were searching for the attackers.
The group committed multiple attacks in August that killed more than 50 people, while authorities responded by killing 21 insurgents in the province.
Those killed included 23 passengers, mostly from Punjab Province, who were fatally shot after being taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail District in Baluchistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his deep sorrow over the killings and vowed to eliminate terrorism.
Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Balochistan, said that “terrorists have once again targeted poor laborers.”
The attackers were cruel and had an agenda to destabilize Pakistan, he said.
“The killing of these innocent laborers would be avenged,” he said in a statement.
Pakistani Minister of the Interior Mohsin Naqvi also said that those who killed the laborers would not be able to escape from the grip of the law.
The province is home to several separatist groups who want independence. They accuse the federal government in Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil and mineral-rich Balochistan.
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