In what could only be described as one of life's little ironies, Prof Talib's younger brother is now worried about the educational future of the only son of his sister who, he says, spent “the best part of her life educating the youths of Balochistan”.

“Is this the reward for a teacher's services? A woman who left her home, family and shared more time of her day with students than her only son?” wonders Mahmood Talib Rana with tears rolling down his face and friends trying to comfort him. “When we heard the news, we thought someone was playing a rude trick on us. We wondered how anyone could target our sister in Quetta, which she considered her first home.”

Teaching in the University of Balochistan since 1987, Prof Nazima Talib was targeted on Sariab Road on Tuesday morning by two masked gunmen riding a motorcycle when she was travelling in a rickshaw. The fresh victim of the wave of targeted killings in Quetta was associated with the mass communication department of the university as an assistant professor.

Second among three brothers and three sisters, 56-year-old Nazima Talib was also a poet and short-story writer. She is survived by her 24-year-old son Muhammad Mansoor. Her ailing mother Rasheeda Begum was too grief-stricken to even cry on seeing her daughter's face, before the coffin placed in front of their 120-square-yard home was taken to Jamia Masjid-o-Madressah in Gulshan-i-Umar for funeral prayers.

Unlike many others who attended the funeral and then burial of the assassinated professor, Masood Talib Rana is clear about the motive behind the daylight murder of his elder sister.

“It is a tradition neither of the Pakhtuns nor of the Baloch to kill innocent people. It's something that can only be described as sheer brutality,” he says despite the fact that the Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the murder of Prof Talib.

Hours after the incident, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed army told reporters on telephone that the murder was in retaliation for the killing of two Baloch women in Quetta and Pasni and torturing of women political workers in Mand and Tump.

“Whether in this city or another in the country, we own each and everyone. The same we expect from the people of other areas regardless of their ethnic backgrounds or religious beliefs,” says Mr Rana.

As friends, family members and neighbours laid Prof Nazima Talib to rest in the Muhammad Shah graveyard of North Karachi, the Quetta police claimed a major breakthrough while investigating her killing. However, political leaders, who saw some hope after the Feb 2008 elections, feel “things are spinning out of the control of everyone”.

“It's time to move fast,” says Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo, the senior vice president of the National Party, who was also a member of the constitutional committee that drafted the 18th constitutional amendment bill, signed into law by the president recently.

He condemned the murder of Prof Nazima Talib.

“From the NFC award to the 18th amendment, the federal government has earned several credits, but still it needs to address key issues related to the people of Balochistan directly to address their grievances.”

Above all, he sees “non-existence of the writ of the government” mainly in Quetta, where various crimes other than targeted killings are common.

“Targeted killing is not the only problem there. Kidnapping for ransom and extortion have also become routine in Quetta. There is no government on ground in the provincial capital, and in these circumstances you can't even imagine that the situation will improve. There is a need to address the issues in both ways — administratively and politically.”