PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Four women who conducted training workshops were shot dead on Monday in a volatile area of Pakistan that was once a Taliban base, said local police and the female employer.
The team was hired by Bravo College of Technology in Peshawar to help local women gain vocational skills, such as sewing in North Waziristan, said Fayaz Khan, the college’s executive director.
“Is this the way to repay the hard work they are doing for the poor?” Khan said over the phone. “Their role was tremendous for the local community.”
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The women were shot in an apparent targeted attack as they passed a desert village near the city of Mirali, in the tribal district of North Waziristan, police chief Shafiullah Gandapur told NBC News.
North Waziristan runs along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban and other militants, including Al Qaeda, until 2014, when the army said it had cleaned up the insurgent region.
No group immediately took responsibility for the attack.
The incident comes amid an increase in attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban in the deeply conservative area in recent months and amid concern that insurgents may be rallying.
“The tribal district of North Waziristan has suffered a lot from militancy for a long time,” Gandapur also said by phone. “The security situation has improved, but we still face a lot of problems.”
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is separate from the Afghan Taliban, but has a similar ideology. The group, which was formed in 2007, aims to overthrow the Pakistani government and establish a government that is in line with its strict interpretation of Islam.
Although the Taliban operate in different areas of Pakistan, it currently does not control a specific area. In the past, in areas under its control, the Pakistani group has banned the education of girls and women were not allowed to work. Nonprofit organizations have also been banned from operating.
Advocates of girls’ education were also targeted. A Taliban from Pakistan took responsibility for shooting and seriously injuring Nobel winner Malala Yousafzai in 2012. She infuriated the Taliban by promoting girls’ education.
To this day, women working for charities are at risk in Pakistan’s conservative tribal areas, where many men and militants reject their efforts to empower women in local society and paint them as Western puppets.
“Female social workers came from the cities and the non-profit organization did not inform us before sending these women to this unstable area,” said Gandapur, the police chief. “If they had informed us before the visit, we would have provided security and we could have avoided this unfortunate incident.”
The police said they had launched a “search and strike” operation to try to arrest the attackers.
Khan, of Bravo College of Technology, said the project to train men and women in North Waziristan was a joint venture with Sabawon, a national organization that helps poor and vulnerable communities, including education, gender empowerment and service delivery and better social facilities.
Sabawon released a statement on Monday expressing concern about the deaths of the four employees at Bravo College, but said they did not represent Sabawon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
