ONCE again, the blood of innocents has flowed in Balochistan. Eight labourers kidnapped in the early hours of Sunday from a poultry farm in Sakran, Lasbela district, were found murdered later that day, their bodies dumped in a mountainous area.

Another labourer, who had been kidnapped in the same incident, was discovered in an injured condition close to the other victims.

The men belonged to various parts of Punjab, driven by economic compulsions to seek work in the insurgency-wracked province following the devastating floods in their native areas. From the details that have emerged, this is yet another grisly chapter in the Baloch separatists’ campaign to define their enemy along ethnic lines, in which any non-Baloch is worthy of elimination.

Evidently, 11 men had been kidnapped, but two were released after a perusal of the victims’ identity cards revealed they were Baloch. Earlier this month, a barber shop and a photographer’s studio in Quetta, both owned by non-Baloch, were attacked with hand grenades, killing and injuring several.

Armed struggles, when they are particularly protracted, run the risk of straying from their original ideological context: frustrations boil over and rivalries stemming from competition over resources to differences regarding strategy create a situation of having to prove one’s credentials.

It could be argued that the Baloch insurgency, spawned by the state’s own repressive and short-sighted policies, turned that corner when separatists began to target non-Baloch living and working in Balochistan.

This trend has especially manifested itself in its latest iteration, triggered by Akbar Bugti’s murder in 2006. In treading upon this path, the separatists betray a hardening of stance and a narrowness of vision that compromises the future of their own people. For, among those non-Baloch who have been attacked or driven out of the province by the insurgents, are educationists, doctors and health workers.

The province thus continues to haemorrhage well-qualified individuals who are much needed to improve developmental indicators already among the lowest in the country, even when non-Baloch such as the Hazaras are slaughtered in attacks by religious extremists who, militant Baloch groups allege, are being used by the state to counter the insurgency, the separatists utter not a word in condemnation. In their hatred and obduracy, they compromise any effort to address the legitimate grievances of the Baloch.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2014