Islamabad: Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 31 people in two separate attacks on Monday, with reports of other shootings and unrest across the same province, police and officials said.
Twenty-three people were fatally shot after being identified and taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan province, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said, in an attack claimed by separatists.
The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active militant separatist group in the region, claimed responsibility for the shootings in a statement emailed to AFP.
The buses, vans and trucks were stopped one after the other on a highway connecting Punjab with Balochistan, Najibullah Kakar, a senior official in Musakhail, told AFP.
“The numbers of the militants were between 30 to 40. They stopped 22 vehicles,” he said.
“Vehicles traveling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot,” he added.
The BLA claimed that those killed were military servicemen in civilian clothes who were “identified and subsequently killed by BLA fighters”, but did not provide any evidence.
In a separate attack, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, in Qalat district also in Baluchistan, authorities said.
Insurgents blew up a railway track in Bolan, attacked a police station in Mastung and attacked and burned vehicles in Gwadar, all districts in Baluchistan. No casualties were reported in those attacks.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, despite an abundance of untapped natural resources.
Baloch separatists have in recent years intensified attacks on Punjabis and Sinhdis from elsewhere in Pakistan working in the region, as well as foreign energy firms they believe are exploiting the region without sharing its riches.
Punjabis are the largest of the six main ethnic groups in Pakistan, and are perceived to dominate the ranks of the military locked in a battle to quash Balochistan’s armed factions.
In a similar attack in April, 11 Punjabi labourers were killed when they were abducted from a bus in Naushki city of Balochistan.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep grief and condemnation over the terrorist attack” in a statement issued Monday by his office.
