DailyTimes.com.pk | March 1, 2011 Story
Additional reporting: Balochwarna

Staff Report

QUETTA: A prominent coordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Balochistan was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Khuzdar, some 300 kilometres from the provincial capital on Tuesday.

According to a police official in Khuzdar, the victim, Naeem Sabir, was sitting in a stationery shop located at the Chakar Khan Road, when unidentified men riding a motorcycle opened fire at him. Sabir was seriously injured in the attack, while the assailants managed to escape.

Police reached the scene of the incident and shifted Sabir to the Civil Hospital, Khuzdar, where he succumbed to his injuries. "He received multiple bullet injures in his upper torso which resulted in his death," hospital sources said.

Police officials said that the motive behind the killing could not be ascertained, however, according to local political activists it was a clear case of targeted killing of a prominent Baloch personality, who had played an important role in defending human rights in the province. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Sabir had worked for NGOs, held conferences, symposia and public meeting and had researched defending the rights of the oppressed and suppressed, particularly the handicapped and blind.

Additional reporting by balochistanpoint.com: The last sentences written by Naeem Sabir on facebook (in Urdu): "Kia 100 Balocho nojawano ki maskh shuda lashey aur hazaro lapata nojawano k mah baap, behn bhaio aur masoom bacho ka dukh aur tarrap "JASHAN" manane ki ijazat dete he????" (trans by balochwarna: Does the recovery of the decomposed bodies of 100 Baloch youth and the suffering of thousands of enforced disappeared Baloch activists', sisters, innocent children and parents allow us to celebrate "JASHAN"?)