Several Baloch labourers were killed and others injured after Pakistan Coast Guards allegedly opened fire in the Kuntani area of Jiwani in Gwadar district, local sources and eyewitnesses said, sparking condemnation from Baloch student, political and rights organisations.
Eyewitnesses said the incident took place while workers were engaged in routine work in the coastal area, adding that sudden firing caused panic and forced people to run towards safer places.
Local sources said the firing was carried out by Pakistan Coast Guards. However, authorities had not issued any official statement on the incident at the time of publication, while the number of deaths and injuries had not been confirmed at the official level.
Sources added that the injured were shifted to nearby hospitals, where the condition of some of them was said to be critical. Reports also said an emergency had been imposed in local hospitals, amid fears that the death toll could rise.
The incident drew strong reaction from Baloch student, political and rights organisations, which described the firing as part of a wider pattern of militarisation, economic restrictions and violence against civilians in Balochistan’s coastal belt.
‘Labouring has become punishable by death’
In a statement, Sholan Baloch, spokesperson for the Baloch Students Organization Azad, described the incident as the “Kuntani massacre” and said Baloch labourers had been targeted while searching for “food and work”.
The statement alleged that workers in the coastal belt had repeatedly faced harassment, extortion and violence, while their vehicles, shops and small businesses had been damaged or destroyed.
The BSO Azad spokesperson said the incident was part of what he described as “colonial oppression” and a broader pattern of “Baloch genocide”, urging Baloch organisations, activists and individuals to “resist, protest and highlight” the firing in Kuntani.
The Baloch Women Forum (BWF) said reports from Kuntani indicated that “dozens” had been killed and several others injured. It said the situation was made worse by the reported absence of even a single ambulance, adding that local people were forced to carry injured victims on their shoulders and in private vehicles in desperate attempts to save lives.
The BWF said Gwadar was widely promoted as a mega development hub and a symbol of economic progress, but that the reality for many indigenous Baloch people was very different.
It said local communities continued to face enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and increasing restrictions on movement and livelihood, adding that “we cannot afford any more loss of Baloch lives”.
Dr Shalee Baloch, chief organiser of the BWF, said the incident exposed what she described as the “brutal reality of life under militarization in Balochistan”.
She said Gwadar was presented to the world as a future economic corridor and a “new Singapore” for foreign investors and strategic powers, while the indigenous Baloch population remained deprived of basic necessities, including access to clean water.
“For the Baloch, Gwadar has effectively become a no-go area within their own ancestral homeland,” she said, adding that checkpoints, military presence, enforced disappearances, targeted killings and restrictions on movement had created an atmosphere in which the local population was treated as a security threat.
Dr Shalee said the state was securitising Gwadar not to protect the people, but to protect strategic and economic interests linked to international investment and regional power politics. She said that “under the shadow of mega projects and militarized development”, the Baloch were being systematically excluded from their own coast, resources and future.
She described Gwadar as a “militarized zone of extraction and control”, saying the “burning coast of Balochistan” was not only a humanitarian crisis but also the consequence of turning an indigenous homeland into a zone of strategic control.
The Balochistan National Party (BNP) also condemned the incident, saying rulers who speak of “bread, clothing and shelter” were closing borders and businesses and depriving the people of Balochistan of the right to live.
The National Party, in a separate statement, described the firing on unarmed labourers as “brutal, condemnable and intolerable”. It said the workers had gone out in search of livelihood to support their families, but were targeted with bullets, which it called a serious violation of human rights.
Haq Do Tehreek Balochistan also condemned the firing in Kuntani, Jiwani, saying that in Balochistan “even labouring to earn a livelihood has now seemingly become a crime punishable by death”.
The group said state institutions had become “brutal, insensitive and unrestrained”, adding that poor workers trying to feed their families had been “riddled with bullets”.
The statement said the incident had once again shown that the lives and property of people in Balochistan were not safe at any level, and that state power was being used against unarmed workers.
Haq Do Tehreek demanded that murder cases be registered against the personnel involved in the firing and their responsible officers, and called for those responsible to be dismissed from service and punished under the law.
The group further demanded justice for the families of those killed, as well as immediate treatment and compensation for the injured.
Pakistani authorities did not immediately comment on the reported firing or the allegations made by Baloch political and rights organisations.