Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has urged the Iranian government to work to bring the culprits involved in the killing of eight Pakistani labourers in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province the previous day.
Expressing “deep” concern about the incident, Sharif, in a statement on Sunday, called for a joint strategy to combat terrorism in the region.
He called on Tehran to immediately arrest the killers and uncover the motive behind this “heinous” terrorist attack.
The Iranian Embassy in Islamabad, in a statement, condemned the incident, terming it “inhuman” and “cowardice”.
Terrorism, it said, is a common threat to the region, and all the regional countries have to fight it jointly.
The incident occurred in Iran’s Mehrestan region, where eight auto mechanics from Pakistan’s largest Punjab province were shot dead by unidentified gunmen while working at a local workshop on Saturday.
Separatist terrorists in Balochistan escalate attacks as Pakistan grapples with a complex web of insurgency, regional tensions, and internal divides threatening its stability.
The terrorist group, Balochistan National Army, claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming that the slain workers were members of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the International Services Intelligence or the ISI.
The attack targeting Pakistanis on Iranian soil drew a parallel to several incidents in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, where terrorists have targeted dozens of people from other provinces, mainly from Punjab, in recent months.
Sunni Baloch constitute a minority but represent a disproportionate number of those executed every year in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In January 2024, nine Pakistani labourers were killed and three critically injured in a similar attack in Saravan city, also located in Iran’s southeastern border region.
