This should have been a period of celebration for Sabir Toor, a 35-year-old government employee from Punjab province in Pakistan.
His younger brother Jabir was supposed to be married in September, which this year coincided with the Islamic month of Rabiul Awwal. Muslims in different parts of the world decorate streets with lights and buntings in Rabiul Awwal, which marks the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.
But Sabir is instead grieving. Jabir, 37, along with another brother, Usman, was shot dead by terrorists two months ago. They were pulled off a bus in a remote part of southern Balochistan province, which has been marred by years of violent ethnic insurgency, and executed after terrorists identified them as Punjabi — part of a chilling wave of ethnically motivated killings.
The tragedy couldn’t have come at a worse time. The brothers were travelling from Balochistan’s capital, Quetta, to Multan to attend the funeral of their father.
As scattered reports began to circulate that nine men – all Punjabi-speaking – had been killed, Sabir recorded a video and shared it on social media. His teary-eyed, frantic appeal to know the whereabouts of his brothers went viral.
“We were supposed to gather as a family to give a farewell to our father. Instead, I buried my brothers along with my father,” says Sabir.
The bus had been ambushed along the Loralai-Musakhel highway, a remote and insurgency-prone corridor of Balochistan.
Armed men boarded the vehicle, checked passengers’ identity cards, and pulled out those with Punjab addresses.
“It was targeted,” Sabir said. “They were taken off the bus because they were Punjabi.”
The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), a banned separatist group, later claimed responsibility for the killings.
BLF and other proscribed terrorist groups based in Balochistan have killed dozens of civilians and security personnel in similar highway executions as they try to deter people from other parts of the country from visiting the province.
No one to wipe their tears
Sabir’s brothers had lived in Quetta since 2017, where Jabir and Usman ran a small business, like a dollar store that sold things such as cosmetics, artificial jewellery, kitchen accessories and perfumes.
“We’re a middle-class family. My brothers’ income was the backbone of our household,” says Sabir.
“Both brothers were unmarried. We were all preparing for Jabir’s wedding in Rabiul Awwal. There was joy in our home.”
That joy is long gone.
Nearly two months have passed. “But we still can’t sleep peacefully,” Sabir says. “The grief hit us like a mountain.”
Despite the emotional devastation and financial hit, there is a quiet hopefulness and determined faith in Sabir. “Life must go on.”
“We will work hard and rebuild what we had”.
The July bus attack was not the first of its kind.
Over the past several years, there has been a spike in attacks targeting labourers, travellers, and residents from Punjab, who are often pulled from intercity buses and shot dead in cold blood by terrorists of BLF and other groups.
In April 2024, nine Punjabi passengers were executed near Noshki.
A few months later, in August 2024, terrorists stopped multiple vehicles in Musakhail, offloaded and killed 23 travellers and torched several vehicles.
In February, seven passengers were similarly shot dead in Barkhan, a district of southwestern Balochistan.
At least 17 attacks by Baloch insurgents targeting Punjabis were reported in Balochistan between January 2024 and August 2025, leaving 81 civilians dead and 30 others injured, according to data shared with TRT World by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank that tracks security, militancy, and conflict trends in Pakistan.
The data shows that majority of these attacks - 12 out of 17 - were targeted killings, which alone accounted for more than 70 deaths.
The ethnically targeted killings by separatist militants are part of a strategy to stir up anti-Punjab violence, a tactic aimed at riling up a larger confrontation between different ethnicities of the country.
Pakistan’s military has been engaged in a years-long counter insurgency campaign against terrorist groups active in Balochistan. But caught in the middle are Punjabi civilians who say their plight is often ignored by local and international media.
Punjab is Pakistan’s largest province in terms of population and economic clout. Smaller provinces, including Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, often squabble over the share of resources with Punjab, as happens in any democracy in the world.
But BLF, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and other ethno-nationalist terrorist groups are deliberately trying to wage a divide among the people, security officials say.
Punjabis like Sabir’s brothers, who make Balochistan their home, often do that because of the shortage of skilled labourers and entrepreneurs in the province.
Most of the Punjabis who travel to Balochistan for work are skilled labourers doing odd plumbing or masonry jobs on a daily wage.
While Baloch politicians have agitated for more autonomy and funds for development, a violent fringe has adopted a campaign of ethnic targeted killings, which aims to destabilise Pakistan.
Terrorist groups have also killed Chinese engineers who have been working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in Balochistan.
China is developing the deep-water Gwadar sea port, which is also in the province.
Beijing has invested heavily in regional development projects as part of a $65 billion commitment under CPEC, which is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
As expert analysis highlights, organised political violence in Balochistan has surged in recent years, driven by resource conflicts, fractured political representation, and the military operation.
“There were over 50 passengers on the bus,” Sabir says, citing accounts from women in the family who survived. “Those with ID cards from Balochistan or other provinces were spared. Only the ones with Punjab ID cards were taken.”
He believes the attackers aimed to provoke unrest.
“They want to send bodies back to Punjab, so people protest. They want a civil war-like situation. But we didn’t allow it.”
‘This state is our mother’
Sabir says that despite the unbearable loss, his family doesn’t blame the country for what had happened.
“This state is our mother. We are her children,” he says. “We stayed patient. We didn’t let anyone use our grief to incite hatred or speak against Pakistan.”
This sentiment stands in stark contrast to growing public frustration over security failures and the seeming impunity with which such attacks continue.
Civil society groups like the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan have condemned the violence.
Sabir’s vision of justice goes beyond personal retribution.
“We want justice in this country — not just for us, but for everyone,” he says.
“No one’s rights should be violated. Only competent and capable people should be appointed to positions of power.”
