Armed men abducted 20 police recruits in Balochistan’s Mastung district on Saturday. Officials said the trainees were travelling home for the weekend in a passenger van along the Quetta-Karachi Highway.
A senior Balochistan government official confirmed the incident to Dawn. According to the official, the recruits were undergoing training at the Kalat Police Training Centre. The attackers intercepted their van and took the trainees away.
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The armed men arrived on motorcycles and carried automatic weapons, the official said. They took the recruits and their vehicle to an undisclosed location. However, they released the van’s driver and three other passengers. Police officials in Mastung also confirmed the abduction.
Officials said the abducted personnel belonged to the Levies Force, which has since merged with the police. They also confirmed that the recruits came from the Rakhshan division. Meanwhile, security forces launched a search operation in nearby mountains to locate the missing personnel.
However, authorities have not yet disclosed any information about the recruits’ whereabouts. In addition, no group has claimed responsibility for the abduction. Officials have not shared further details about the attackers or their possible motives.
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The incident follows another abduction in Balochistan. A day earlier, armed men kidnapped Rakhshan Division Commissioner Asad Ullah Kakar in Kharan district. The latest incident adds to a series of reported kidnappings involving government officials and personnel in the province.
Earlier, Kharan Deputy Commissioner Munir Ahmed Soomro returned safely on October 3. He had spent nearly two weeks in captivity after armed men abducted him from the Noshki-Kharan Highway the previous month. Local tribal elders negotiated his release. Furthermore, three excise officials were kidnapped on July 21 after an attack on a checkpost in Chagai district.