ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Caretaker Interior Minister Senator Sarfraz Bugti said on Sunday that the government was utilizing all resources at its disposal to recover six local footballers who were kidnapped a day earlier in southwestern Pakistan.
The footballers were kidnapped by unidentified armed men from the Sui Tehsil area in Dera Bugti district in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Saturday, according to local media reports. The footballers, residents of Balochistan’s Sui and Dera Bugti areas, were going to Sibi to participate in the All-Pakistan Chief Minister Gold Cup football tournament.
“All resources will be utilized to recover the kidnapped persons,” Bugti was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior on the social media platform X. The ministry added Bugti had issued directives to security institutions on Saturday to take steps to recover the footballers.
The statement added that the area in Sui Tehsil from where the footballers were kidnapped had been cordoned off on Saturday and an operation was underway to recover the victims.
“The necks of those spreading violence will not be able to escape the law,” Bugti was quoted as saying by the ministry. “The kidnapped are our children, I will not rest till they are recovered.”
Pakistan’s gas-rich Balochistan province shares a porous border with Iran and Afghanistan, and has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baloch nationalists for around two decades. The separatists say they are fighting what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s wealth by the federation, which is denied by the Pakistani state.
Pakistani security forces have been the main focus of separatist attacks, but in recent years they have also targeted Chinese interests, given Beijing’s increasing economic footprint in the region.
