Gunmen in southwest Pakistan shot seven bus passengers dead after identifying them as being from another region, officials said yesterday.
Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Attacks on security forces and ethnic groups have increased sharply in the past few years, especially against laborers from Punjab, the country’s most populous and prosperous province and also a major recruitment base for the military.
Photo: EPA
Attackers late on Tuesday burst the tires of a bus that was traveling through Balochistan along a highway close to the provincial border with Punjab, said Saadat Hussain, a government official in the area.
Gunmen boarded the bus and demanded to see the identity cards of passengers.
“The passengers belonging to Punjab province ... were taken off by the terrorists and killed,” Hussain said. “They were lined up and shot dead.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Balochistan Liberation Army is the most active group in the region, killing six people in a bombing last month. The separatist militants killed at least 39 people in coordinated attacks last year that largely targeted ethnic Punjabis.
In November last year, the group claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
The militants have also targeted energy projects with foreign financing accusing outsiders of exploiting the resource-rich region while excluding residents in the poorest part of Pakistan.
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