Gunmen kill 23 passengers in targeted attack on ethnic Punjabis in Balochistan

KARACHI — Unidentified gunmen in a targeted attack shot and killed at least 23 people from Pakistan’s Punjab province on Monday in the restive Balochistan province after offloading them from buses and checking their identities. The incident happened in Balochistan’s Musakhel district.

Senior Superintendent of Police Ayub Khoso said that militants of an outlawed group put up blocks on the highway in the Rarashim area of the Musakhel district and offloaded 23 passengers. He, however, did not identify the outfit.

“The passengers were told to get down from buses and shot dead after being identified from their national ID cards,” Khoso said.

“Most of those killed belonged to southern Punjab and some are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suggesting they were killed because of their ethnic background,” he added.

Khoso said the armed men had also set some 12 vehicles on fire on the highway before fleeing into the nearby mountainous terrain.

Police reached the spot and shifted the bodies to the hospital.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti strongly condemned the incident of terrorism. He expressed heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of those who died in the cowardly act of terrorists.

“The terrorists and their facilitators will not be able to escape an exemplary end,” he said, adding that the Balochistan government will pursue the terrorists.

The Musakhel attack comes months nearly four months after a similar attack targeting people from Punjab. In April, nine passengers were offloaded from a bus near Noshki and shot dead after gunmen checked their ID cards.

In October last year, unidentified gunmen fatally shot six labourers hailing from Punjab in Turbat in Balochistan’s Kech district. According to the police, the killings were targeted. All victims belonged to different areas of southern Punjab, suggesting they had been chosen for their ethnic background.

A similar incident occurred in 2015 when gunmen killed 20 construction workers and injured three others in a pre-dawn attack on a labourers’ camp near Turbat.