QUETTA, Aug 4: Three people, including a cleric and a doctor, were killed in different areas of Balochistan on Saturday.

According to police sources, armed men on a motorbike opened fire on Maulvi Abdul Aleem when he was going home in Killi Saeed area of Mastung district. Maulvi Aleem was Imam at a mosque in Mastung.

A doctor was killed by armed men in Awaran area. No details were available in this regard.

A driver of a Nato truck was killed in Khuzdar district. Police said that armed men opened fire on a truck in Wadh area when the driver was going to Karachi after unloading Nato goods in Afghanistan. The deceased was identified as Zakria.

FREED: Four employees of the Balochistan Rural Support Programme have been set free by kidnappers after almost eight months of captivity.

Six employees of the NGO were kidnapped in December last year and two of them were killed in March and May this year for not paying ransom for their release. Those released include Aftab, Mujeeb, Zahoor and Bashir. The two officials who had been killed were Maqbool and Ghafoor.

Official sources said all the four released employees reached Islamabad on Saturday evening. Home Secretary Nasibullah Bazai told Dawn that they would return to Quetta on Sunday.

According to sources, they were kidnapped by Taliban and taken to Waziristan. However, it was not known that on what conditions they were released as the Taliban had demanded Rs230 million ransom for their release. Negotiations with Taliban continued for a long time through some influential people. —Staff Correspondent