QUETTA, Pakistan. Attackers shot dead seven barbers before dawn Thursday at a house in a volatile province in southwestern Pakistan, police and a government official said.
The killings occurred near the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan province, police officer Mohsin Ali said. All the barbers were from the province of Punjab and lived and worked together.
Provincial Interior Minister Ziaullah Langau condemned the killings and said police were investigating who was behind the attack.
There was no immediate attribution of responsibility. Separatists in Balochistan have often killed workers and other people from Punjab as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province, which for years has experienced a low-level insurgency by the Balochistan Liberation Army and other groups demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. . Islamic militants also have a presence in the province.
The government says it has quelled the separatist insurgency, but violence in the province has persisted.
Police said they believe the attack on the barbers was not related to their jobs. Last month, the Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for killing nine people from Punjab province who were kidnapped from a bus on a highway in Balochistan, saying it had information that there were spies on the bus.
Separatists have also attacked people from Punjab working on coal mining projects in Balochistan.
In January, gunmen killed six barbers in a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold in the country’s northwest, near the border with Afghanistan. Years ago, Pakistani militants banned beard trimming and Western-style haircuts.