Gunmen kill seven barbers in Pakistan's volatile Balochistan province

Attackers fatally shot seven barbers before dawn in a home in a volatile province in southwestern Pakistan, police and a government official said.

The killings on Thursday occurred near the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan province, police official Mohsin Ali said. All of the barbers were from Punjab province and lived and worked together.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Separatists in Balochistan have often killed workers and others 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.

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 abducted from a bus on a highway in Balochistan, saying it had information that spies were on the bus.

Separatists have also targeted people from Punjab working on coal-mine projects in Balochistan.

In January, gunmen killed six barbers in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s northwest near the Afghanistan border.