Gunmen killed at least 40 people in separate attacks on Monday in neighbouring Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province.
In the first incident, gunmen shot dead at least 23 people from Punjab province in Balochistan’s Musakhel district after forcing passengers off buses and checking their identity cards.
Apart from this incident, 11 people have been killed in Kalat district, including 5 policemen, while 6 bodies have been recovered from another district. A total of 14 security personnel have also been killed in these attacks.
According to Musakhel Assistant Commissioner Najeeb Kakar, around 10 armed attackers blocked the inter-provincial highway in Rarasim area of the district and forced passengers off several buses.
He said, “According to reports, the people killed are from Punjab province.” According to Kakar, the attackers also set some vehicles on fire. Musakhel is located about 450 km north-east of Balochistan’s capital Quetta.
The Baloch separatists BLA regularly target people from Punjab province and allege that Punjabis dominate the armed forces fighting militants in the province.
In the past 24 hours, the BLA has attacked police stations, security forces camps and several government installations across the area. “The passengers were asked to get off the buses and were shot dead after checking their national identity cards,” said Senior Police Superintendent Ayub Khoso.
According to him, “Most of the dead are from Southern Punjab and some are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which shows that they were killed because of their ethnic background.”
In another attack, at least 11 people, including four police officers, were killed by gunmen in Balochistan’s Kalat district, authorities said.
Kalat is located about 150 km south of the capital Quetta and the Baloch tribes dominate the area. Security sources told Geo News that terrorists attacked several places in Balochistan on the night of August 24 and August 25.
The banned militant group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility for these attacks. Both attacks have taken place during the 18th death anniversary of Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.
Khan was killed in an operation by the Pakistan Army. Militant groups have named their violence ‘Operation Haruf’ and have simultaneously launched a series of attacks in various districts of the province.
The attack in Kalat comes after militants on Monday stopped buses and trucks in the Rarashim area of Musakhel district, made 23 passengers deboard and shot them dead after identifying them as travellers from Punjab.
“The militants carried out the attack in the morning and then fled to the nearby hills,” Kalat Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dostain Dashti said over the phone.
He said that security forces have launched a massive search operation and the attackers are being searched for.
Security sources confirmed that militants of the separatist group launched attacks in Musakhel and Kalat as well as some other areas of the province on Sunday-Monday night but security forces retaliated and foiled their plans.
“The alert security forces chased the attackers in some areas and already 12 terrorists have been killed,” a source said.
Radio Pakistan reported that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif have strongly condemned the attack. Expressing grief over the death of people in the attacks, they prayed for the peace of the departed souls and expressed condolences to the bereaved families.
Zardari said the brutal killing of innocent people was a murder of entire humanity and called for punishment of the culprits.
The Prime Minister directed the local administration to extend full cooperation to the bereaved families and provide medical assistance to the injured.
He also directed law enforcement agencies to immediately investigate the incident. Shahbaz Sharif said, “The terrorists responsible for this incident will be given severe punishment.” He said that any kind of terrorism is not acceptable in the country.
Both the President and the Prime Minister expressed Pakistan’s unwavering commitment to eradicate the scourge of terrorism. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti strongly condemned this act of terrorism.
He also expressed condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the cowardly act of terrorism. Bugti said that terrorists and their supporters will not be able to escape. He said that the Balochistan government will catch the terrorists.
In another terrorist attack, a railway bridge was blown up in Dojan area of Bolan, police said. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province but is the least developed despite having more resources than other provinces.
The BLA and other Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on people from Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh provinces working in the region.
About four months before the attack in Musakhel, a similar attack was carried out targeting people from Punjab. In April, nine passengers were deboarded from a bus near Noshki and gunmen killed them after checking their identity cards.
In October last year, unidentified gunmen shot dead six workers from Punjab in Turbat, Kech district in Balochistan.
A similar incident occurred in 2015 when gunmen attacked a labour camp near Turbat and killed 20 people.
According to the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies, there were 170 terror attacks in Balochistan last year in which 151 civilians and 114 security personnel were killed.
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