Nushki victims’ bodies sent to native towns after funeral prayers

QUETTA: The bodies of nine labourers, who were abducted and shot dead by unknown assailants in Nushki district of Balochistan Friday night, were sent back to their native towns on Saturday after their Namaz-e-Janaza was offered here.

The funeral prayers of the victims, who belonged to Wazirabad, Mandi Bahauddin and Gujranwala in Punjab, were offered at the Police Lines. The police said six people belonged to Mandi Bahauddin and were from the same village Chak Fateh Shah. Their family members said the men had left for Iraq three days before Eid.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti and high-ranking police officers also attended the funeral prayers.

Deputy Commissioner Habibullah Musakhel said the unknown assailants checked the identity cards of passengers from the Taftan-bound bus and abducted nine of them. They took them to an area off the road and shot them dead.

Condemning the incident, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sought a report and expressed condolences over the deaths and said terrorists and their facilitators would be brought to justice.

According to the news agencies, banned outfit BLA [Balochistan Liberation Army] has claimed responsibility for the Nushki killings.

Separately, President Asif Ali Zardari Saturday strongly condemned the merciless killing of passengers in Nushki. “The whole nation rejected the heinous designs of terrorists,” he said in a statement. He expressed grief and sorrow over the barbaric killing of passengers by terrorists.

The president said the security forces, with the support of the nation, were determined to completely eradicate terrorists.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also condemned the incident, saying the government stands with families of the deceased at this time of grief. “There is no room for such a tragic incident in Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan,” he added.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz strongly condemned the murder of bus passengers after abducting them in Nushki. She expressed condolences with the bereaved families. She vowed, “Pakistanis are a united nation and their unity will remain intact forever”, adding that such nefarious elements involved in spreading hatred would be wiped out once and for all.

Also, Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari, while strongly condemning the terror attack in Nushki, instructed the chief minister of Balochistan to ensure that justice was done and killers were brought to book. Expressing sympathies and condolences to the bereaved families, he said an example should be made of the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it was appalled by the cold-blooded murder of nine people, who were forced off a bus near Nushki and shot dead by unknown assailants.

The fact that the gunmen checked their identity cards suggested that their ethnicity or sect might have made them the targets. Deteriorating security in Balochistan must be addressed by the government as a matter of priority, the statement said.

At the same time, the government must tackle the root-cause of militancy and not by means of force alone.