In one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan's restive southwestern region, gunmen fatally shot 33 people after identifying and removing them from buses, vehicles and trucks, according to media reports on Monday.
The killings occurred overnight in two separate attacks in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing the scene.
In the first incident, at least 23 people from Pakistan's Punjab province were killed in a targeted attack in Balochistan’s Musakhel district after gunmen offloaded them from buses and checked their identities.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti condemned the incident of terrorism, while Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“The terrorists showed brutality by targeting innocent passengers near Musakhail,” he was quoted as saying in a statement on X posted by PML-N.
“The terrorists and their facilitators will not be able to escape an exemplary end,” he said.
The government expresses its heartfelt condolences to and sympathises with the bereaved families, the statement said.baloch liberation army
In the second attack, gunmen killed at least 10 people, including four police officers, in the Qalat district also in Balochistan, authorities said.
The attacks came hours after the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army separatist group warned people to stay away from the highways, but no group has claimed responsibility.
The separatists in Balochistan have often killed workers and others from the country's eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province, which for years has experienced a low-level insurgency.
Most such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad.
In October last year, unidentified gunmen fatally shot six labourers hailing from Punjab in Turbat in Balochistan's Kech district. The killings were targeted, with all victims belonging 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 laborers' camp near Turbat. The victims belonged to Sindh and Punjab.
