Twenty dam workers were killed in Pakistan while they slept. Interior minister Akbar Hussain Durrani commented on the cowardly massacre.
“All were sleeping in their camp when they were targeted.”
According to the BBC , the Balochistan Liberation Front are taking credit for the 20 workers that were killed at the dam. According to reports, gunmen were able to navigate their way past a group of security guards who guard the dam and the workers.
The location of the dam is in the Gobdan area of district Turbat. The dam project is one that is being funded by the army. The dam is located in the province of Balochistan. Balochistan is on the border of Iran and has been a volatile area. In Balochistan, a low-level insurgency has been happening. Nationalist and Baluch groups both are fighting to secure resources in the area.
Balochistan is the poorest province in Pakistan . It is no secret that criminal activity tends to always migrate into the areas that are suffering economic hardships. It is known that the criminal activity in this area includes death squads, kidnappings, drugs, and Taliban insurgency.
The 20 dam workers that were killed were civilians. Sixteen of the workers were from the Punjab province. The other four were from Sindh province. Not everyone in the attack was killed though. Three workers are still alive.
Since the dam is a project that is backed by the army, any person working on the project would be seen as part of the government. Even though the 20 dam workers were civilians, they suffered the fate of death because they were working on this government project.
Sarfaraz Bugti, the Balochistan Home Minister, made it clear that the people who are responsible for the murder of the 20 dam workers are being hunted by Frontier Corps troops.
“We will chase them down and bring them to justice. We need help in this war against terrorists. Alone, we cannot fight.”
A spokesmen for the Balochistan government, Jan Mohammad Buledi , stated that the families of the 20 workers who were killed would be offered one million rupees. Money will not do anything to bring these workers back home. It will help these families take care of bills and whatever costs are entailed with burying the victims.
Pakistan has many problems they need to deal with. Until the government gets control of the country back, more civilian workers will end up caught in the crossfire.
There is hope that the people responsible for killing these 20 dam workers are found and brought to justice.
[IMG Via bbc.com ]
