Three female students were injured when masked gunmen opened fire at the Girls Degree College in Balochistan’s Nushki district on Tuesday, according to the college administration.
The administration said three armed men entered the premises, damaged surveillance cameras and vandalised the principal’s office, then opened fire on students.
The injured students were taken to Mir Gul Khan Naseer Teaching Hospital in Nushki for treatment. The administration said one of them was in critical condition.
They were identified as Mehmoona and Maryam, both residents of Qaziabad, and Rukhsana, a resident of Killi Mengal.
Hospital sources said Rukhsana, daughter of Maula Bakhsh, was referred to a hospital in Quetta because of the severity of her injuries.
The motive behind the attack remained unknown at the time of reporting.
‘We Don’t See Such Incidents as Accidents’
Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC) Chairman Uzair Baloch condemned the shooting, saying educational institutions were again being targeted to disrupt education in Balochistan.
“We don’t see such incidents as accidents,” he wrote on X, describing them as broader attempts to prevent students from pursuing their education.
Journalist Bahot Baloch called the attack “a conspiracy to keep Baloch women away from education”.
He recalled the killing of Professor Ghamkhwar Hayat earlier this year, which he said took place a few yards from the same college.
Read More | The Killing of Ghamkhwar Hayat and the Shrinking Space for Thought in Balochistan — TBP Report
He also questioned the attackers’ escape, saying, “Pakistani forces have posts behind the girls’ college, with their main camp a kilometre away. The attackers’ escape in that direction after firing on the students raises several questions.”
Attacks on Schools and Girls’ Education
The Nushki shooting comes weeks after masked attackers entered Ruzhn School in Buleda’s Minaz area and opened fire on its surveillance cameras.
School director Zahoor Ahmed told a press conference that around eight masked gunmen carried out the attack. He said educational institutions in Buleda had faced repeated attacks, naming Saach School, Gulbang School, Sanj School Minaz and Kalkashan School among those previously targeted.
Read More | Makran Schools to Close on October 6 in Protest After Armed Attack on School in Buleda
Girls’ education was explicitly targeted in Panjgur in 2014, when Tanzeem-ul-Islami-ul-Furqan threatened private schools, demanding that they expel female students or close.
During the same campaign, armed men stopped a van carrying girls to Oasis School, beat the school’s owner, who was driving them, and set the vehicle on fire. The students escaped unharmed.
Also Read | Private schools shut down in Panjgur after threats by local religious group
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in its State of Human Rights in 2014 report, documented the closure of private schools and English-language centres in Panjgur for more than three months following threats and intimidation. It said teachers reported attendance below 40 per cent when the institutions reopened in August.
Baloch National Movement (BNM) Secretary General Dilmurad Baloch alleged in a 2022 statement that operatives linked to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency had attacked schools and attempted to stop girls’ education under the name Furqan-ul-Islam.
Disappearances and Killings of Teachers
Baloch rights organisations have also accused Pakistani forces and state-backed armed groups of involvement in the disappearances and killings of schoolteachers.
Earlier this month, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) said schoolteacher Parvez Baloch, son of Mazar Baloch, was forcibly disappeared from Pasni’s main market on October 13. His mutilated body was found dumped the following day in the Daroband area of Pasni, the organisation said.
The committee alleged that a state-backed armed group, which it described as a “death squad”, was responsible for his abduction and extrajudicial killing.
The BYC also reported in August that Hathim Baloch, a schoolteacher from Panjgur, had been found dead weeks after his abduction by a state-backed armed group from Washbood Main Bazaar.
Another schoolteacher, Ayaz Baloch, was among two men whose bodies were recovered from the Berith area of Awaran district in January. Local sources said Ayaz, originally from Kolwah in Kech, had been detained by Pakistani forces in October 2025. His family alleged that he was killed in custody.
The Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB) has documented similar allegations in earlier cases. Its 2018 report alleged that Pakistani forces killed teacher Ali Jan Baloch during a raid on his home in Jhao, Awaran, on April 20, 2013. It said Sunrise School, which he had founded, closed following his death.
The same report discussed the killing of educationist Zahid Askani, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen while travelling to his school in Gwadar on December 4, 2014. HRCB alleged that state-backed extremists who had threatened English-medium and coeducational schools in Panjgur were involved in his killing.
Following Professor Ghamkhwar Hayat’s killing in Nushki on May 16 this year, HRCB alleged that state-backed armed groups, locally known as “death squads”, were responsible.
The organisation expressed concern over violence and repression targeting professors, intellectuals and members of academic institutions in Balochistan, and called for an impartial investigation into his killing.