agencies
Quetta (Pakistan), Oct 20: Unidentified men threw a grenade into a labourers’ hostel in the Pakistani port of Gwadar wounding 26, police said Friday. The attack is likely to raise concern about security for the Pakistani section of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, one of three on Thursday in the gas-rich southwestern province of Baluchistan, a key section of the plan for energy and transport links connecting western China with the Middle East and Europe.
“The labourers were having dinner at the hostel when motorcyclists attacked them with a grenade,” a police officer was quoted as saying.
In the other attacks, a grenade attack at a food court in the town of Mastung, 55 km (35 miles) from the provincial capital of Quetta, wounded 15 people, a police official said. In the third attack, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire at paramilitary soldiers killing one and wounding four in the west of the province.
Separatist rebels in Baluchistan, fighting against what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s resources, have for years attacked energy and infrastructure projects, including the Gwadar deep-sea port on the Arabian Sea.