At least five passengers were killed after being offloaded from a bus by suspected militants, and sprayed with bullets in southwestern Pakistan, officials have said.
The incident, latest in a string of similar attacks, occurred in the strategic port city of Gwadar in Balochistan province, where militants blocked a highway in the Kalmat area, and offloaded the passengers from a Karachi-bound bus late Wednesday night.
The armed men checked the identification cards of the passengers before killing them. The deceased belonged to northeastern Punjab, the country’s largest and richest province, according to local media.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the incident in a post on X, saying: “Offloading innocent passengers from a bus and murdering them based on their identity is a heinous and cowardly act.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack, however, the terrorist group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has carried out similar attacks in the past.
The attack took place in Barkhan, a district of southwestern Balochistan, a key battleground in Pakistan's decades-long fight against terrorist groups.
‘Enemies of peace and development’
Last week, four laborers from Punjab were killed by unidentified assailants in Balochistan’s Kalat district, while four policemen were similarly gunned down in Noshki district.
There are reports of several other road blockades by armed men in the Bolan, Kolpur and Mastung areas, where security forces were engaged in clearing the roads.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in separate statements, also condemned the incident, calling the attackers the “enemies of peace and development.”
The Balochistan province has long been witnessing a low-intensity conflict, with renewed attacks by the BLA terrorist group in recent weeks.
The group, earlier this month, hijacked a passenger train in the Bolan region, killing 31 people, including five paramilitary troops. Some 33 suspected attackers were also killed in a day-long security operation.
