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The Essential: From Our Own Correspondent: A Targeted Profession

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From Our Own Correspondent: A Targeted Profession

18/08/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - The Essential, From Our Own Correspondent: A Targeted Profession

Why are lawyers being killed in Pakistan - and particularly in the Baluchistan region?

Shaimaa Khalil examines the backdrop to the 8 August bombing of a Quetta hospital, which killed over scores le including dozens of lawyers. But why them - and why there?

As a BBC correspondent in Pakistan, Shaimaa Khalil's grown accustomed to terror alerts and the aftermaths of bomb and gun attacks. But the 8 August bombing of a hospital in Quetta was far outside the national norm - and it specifically targeted lawyers who'd gathered there to mourn the assassination of a colleague. Quetta is the main city of Baluchistan, a restive region in Pakistan's southwest with its own separatist movement - and a recurrent source of concern for the country's central government. It's also afflicted by criminal cartels and several religiously-inspired armed groups. So what is really going on?

Photo: Pakistani lawyers shout slogans against the killing of their colleagues a day after suicide bombing at the Civil Hospital in Quetta, during a protest in Islamabad on August 9, 2016. / AFP / AAMIR QURESHI (Photo credit should read AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images)

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