Baloch terrorists abducted nine passengers from a bus in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province and later killed them, a local official said on Friday, as Pakistan once again blamed India for supporting insurgency in the restive region.
The passengers, all of them ethnic Punjabis, were abducted on Thursday night in the Sur-Dakai area on the border between Balochistan’s Zhob and Loralai districts, Zhob Assistant Commissioner Naveed Alam told reporters.
Their bodies, with bullet wounds, were discovered in the mountains overnight.
The Balochistan Liberation Front, a banned outfit, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to a report in Dawn, quoting sources, two passenger coaches en route to Punjab were intercepted on a highway.
The gunmen got on the buses, checked the identity cards of passengers and forced 10 people off the vehicles.
“They dragged out 10 passengers — seven from one coach and three from the other — and took them away (to an unknown place),” a surviving passenger told authorities. “I don’t know what they did to them, but I heard gunfire as we were leaving.”
“The blood of innocent people will be avenged. The killing of innocent citizens is an open act of terrorism by India-sponsored terrorists," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.
There was no immediate reaction from India to his statement.
In February this year, terrorists stopped a passenger bus on its way from Quetta to Faisalabad in the Barkhan area of Balochistan and killed at least seven passengers.
In August last year, militants killed 23 passengers in Musakhel district after forcing them to disembark from several vehicles.
Pakistan has seen a surge in terrorist attacks in recent years in Balochistan.
Balochistan is Pakistan's largest but poorest province, where China has made several investments as part of its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Terrorist groups have also targeted and killed Chinese engineers in the past.
