Gunmen kill 9 labourers in SW Pakistan

‘Appears to be ethnically motivated attack’

QUETTA, Pakistan, Oct 19, (AFP): Suspected separatist insurgents in southwest Pakistan killed nine labourers Sunday in what appeared to be an ethnically motivated attack, officials said.

The gunmen stormed a poultry farm in the early hours of Sunday in the town of Hub, some 640 kms (400 miles) southwest of Baluchistan province’s capital city Quetta.

They kidnapped 11 labourers, senior local administration official Fawad Soomro said, and questioned them over their ethnicities.

“They blindfolded the nine workers belonging to Punjab province and shot them while setting the two Baluch workers free,” he said.

He added that the freed Baluch workers made their way to a local police station to report the crime.

Akbar Harifal, another senior district administration official, confirmed the incident.

“Hub is a developing industrial town where most of the workforce comes from Karachi and from cities in Punjab province,” he said.

Resource-rich but poor Baluchistan is in the midst of its fifth uprising against Pakistani rule.

Its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.

Separatists also chafe at the outsize influence of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, and the influx of migrant workers from other parts of the country.

Last week the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan