Militants target teachers in Pakistan's southwest: HRW

Militants in Pakistan's Baluchistan are increasingly attacking teachers, college professors and other school personnel, pushing the education system in the southwest province to the "brink of collapse."

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report called "Their Future is at Stake" and released in Islamabad on Monday, that the attacks were forcing several hundred education officials to flee.

For decades, separatists in Baluchistan have been fighting a low-level guerrilla war for control of the province's resources, which they say are unfairly exploited by richer provinces.

Ali Dayan Hasan, HRW's South Asia researcher, said militants killed at least 22 teachers and other education personnel in the past two years.

"This is a kind of crisis that will lead to Baluchistan being set back by decades and it will bring darkness to the province and it will ensure children in Baluchistan simply have no future," he told a news conference.

Critics say the government has failed to provide millions of with a proper education in Pakistan. Many poor Pakistanis can only afford to send their children to religious schools, which the critics say promote Islamic fundamentalism.

Hasan urged militants to stop what he called "war crimes."

"If they do not, they are sucking the entire province into a spiral of violence. Emerging from it will become very difficult," he said.

"If there is a group waging a war for independence, it is still governed by rules of engagement and those rules are not being followed."

Baluchistan, Pakistan's largest but poorest province bordering Afghanistan and Iran, has large mineral reserves, including oil, gas, copper and gold.

Hasan said disappearances of Baluch nationalists and abuses allegedly committed by state agencies were also serious issues.

Human rights groups have reported hundreds of missing people in Baluchistan.

Hasan said: "You do not combat abuse with abuse and I'm afraid that is happening in Baluchistan."

Out of fear of militant attacks, he said 200 teachers had transferred to jobs in safer areas, while another 200 were hoping to find jobs elsewhere.

HRW urged the Baluchistan government to investigate these alleged attacks and try the perpetrators.

"It is for the state to provide protection to teachers....and above all it is up to the state to establish its writ, which is absent in large parts of Baluchistan," he said.