Karachi, February 22 Unidentified armed men have abducted nine labourers from the Barkhan and Khuzdar districts of Balochistan province in Pakistan over the last 24 hours, officials said Sunday evening.
In both cases, the sites belonged to private companies, and the labourers were from the Sindh province.
Armed men reached a construction camp in the remote Moola area of Khuzdar and, after identifying the labourers, took away six of them in a double-cabin vehicle on Saturday night, Muhammad Siraj at the deputy commissioner's office in Khuzdar said.
The construction site, where work was underway on a water canal project, is about 50 kilometres from the district headquarters.
In the second incident on Sunday morning, armed men entered a construction site in the Dhola Nadi area in Barkhan district and took away three labourers.
The abduction, and in many cases the killing, of workers from other provinces who are employed on various development projects in Balochistan has become a frequent occurrence.
Earlier this month, five workers were killed at a site in the Noshki area of the province.
Last year, in a major incident, 18 workers were taken away from a road project in Khuzdar and released after several months.
