Unidentified gunmen shot dead seven Punjabi travellers in Pakistan’s Balochistan region, reported AFP on Wednesday.
Seven people from the Punjab region in Pakistan were travelling in a bus when the vehicle was stopped abruptly on a highway through Balochistan. Gunmen had burst the tyres of the bus and boarded the bus late at night on Tuesday, reported AFP, citing government officials.
Later, the armed terrorists demanded to see the identity cards of passengers and forced those belonging to Punjab province to step down. Those travellers were lined up and shot dead, allegedly for belonging to another region in Pakistan.
“The passengers belonging to Punjab province… were taken off by the terrorists and killed,” said Saadat Hussain, a senior government official in the area, told AFP.
“Later, they were lined up and shot dead,” Hussain added.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in the impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Pakistan terror attack
A few days ago, a terrorist attack killed nearly eight to ten people in Balochistan when terrorists targeted a vehicle with an explosive device.
The bomb blast occurred when a truck carrying workers in the Harnai area of Balochistan province reached the mining site on February 14. According to reports, the IED device was planted on the roadside, and exploded when a truck carrying coal miners reached the site.
Balochistan faces numerous issues, including state repression, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of activists, scholars, and civilians. The region suffers from economic neglect, with insufficient development, lack of basic infrastructure, and limited political autonomy. (
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