QUETTA – Gunmen Saturday stormed a Coast Guard camp and killed seven soldiers in Gwadar district, the winter capital of Balochistan.
Though some parts of the province are facing active insurgency but this costal district has been relatively calm. A spokesman of the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), an anti-state group, calling from unspecified location claimed the responsibility of the attack.
Gwadar Deputy Commissioner Sohailur Rehman told TheNation that unidentified armed men riding motorbikes and vehicles encircled the camp in Peshokan area, some 30KM west of Gwadar town, and opened indiscriminate fire on the security personnel with sophisticated weapons, killing seven of them and wounding another.
However, some other sources said that eight coast guards were killed and three wounded in the attack that came on the afternoon by eight armed men, who came on motorbikes and swiftly fled the scene after the attack.
The deceased and injured security men were moved to the Gwadar Hospital. The seven killed were identified as Ghani Asif, Sher Ali, Riaz Ahmed, Akmal, Adnan, Shahbaz and Abdul Sattar. Hospital sources said that a seriously injured soldier was moved to Karachi after providing him first aid.
Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani condemned the incident and directed the authorities to apprehend the attackers. A heavy contingent of law enforcement agencies reached the site and launched a major manhunt after cordoning off the area.
Gwadar is a port town that has seen a construction boom over the past decade as part of country’s plans to develop it, with Chinese help, into a trading hub. Balochistan suffers from sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias and a separatist insurgency which also targets government officials and security agencies.
Shot dead
A man was shot dead in Jaffarabad while a boy sustained injuries in a blast in Dukki, on Saturday.
According to police, armed assailants opened indiscriminate fire on a man at Ali Abad Road in Usta Muhammad area of Jaffarabad district. As a result of that, man received critical wounds and succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital. The deceased was identified as Zaman Khokhar, however, motive behind the incident is yet to be ascertained.
Police handed over the body to heirs after completing legal formalities and registered a case against unidentified accused.
In another incident, a 12-year-old boy, Muhammad Hussain, was injured in a blast in Nasirabad area of Dukki.
Police said Muhammad Hussain found a toy-like thing and started playing with it which exploded and wounded him. He was moved to nearby hospital where his condition was stated to be out of danger.
Meanwhile, police found a dead body lying near Sakaran Hotel in Hub, the industrial town of Balochistan, and moved to hospital for autopsy.
However, the identity of body could not be ascertained immediately.