Unidentified gunmen killed seven people travelling to Punjab after off-loading them from a passenger bus, on National Highway (NA-70) in the Radkan area of Barkhan district, Balochistan, late on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. Officials said that a group of around 40 armed men stopped several buses and other vehicles near Rakhani, on the Barkhan-Dera Ghazi Khan Highway.
“Armed men offloaded seven passengers from a coach after checking their identity cards and killed them,” Barkhan Deputy Commissioner Waqar Khurshid Alam said. “All seven who were travelling in the coach belonged to Punjab, and were on their way to Lahore.”
After forcing them down from the coach, the gunmen opened fire, killing them on the spot, he said, adding that the attackers managed to escape. The bodies of the seven slain men were later shifted to the district headquarters hospital, according to reports in several Pakistani newspapers.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for carrying out the attack.
According to the bus service office, the ill-fated bus was travelling from Quetta in Balochistan to Faisalabad in Punjab and had at least 45 passengers on board. One passenger, Zeeshan Mustafa, a resident of Burewala travelling to Multan, reported that the assailants took his brother away after checking his identity card.
The killings were similar to a number of attacks which took place last year in Turbat, Gwadar and other areas of Balochistan in which natives of Punjab were targeted. The attacks have always been targeted against people hailing from the Punjab province.
The Barkhan deputy commissioner said that Frontier Corps (FC) and Levies personnel had reached the site and cordoned off the area.
During 2024, several attacks have been carried out in Balochistan targeting those hailing from Punjab. In two separate incidents in April 2024, nine people were killed after being forced off a bus near Noshki, while two labourers from Punjab were shot in Kech.
In May last year, seven barbers from Punjab were shot dead near Gwadar, while August saw 23 travellers offloaded from trucks and buses and shot in the Musakhail district.
The worst such attack of Punjabis being targeted by Baloch nationalist rebels had happened in the last week of August 2024. In this attack, at least 23 people were killed in Balochistan’s Musakhail district after armed men offloaded passengers from trucks and buses and shot at them after checking their identities. Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed responsibility for carrying out the attack.
According to officials, then also, a group of armed men numbering between 30 to 40 stopped many vehicles. Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot dead. The armed men also set fire to 23 vehicles, including 17 trucks, two passenger vans and four pick-up vehicles.
On April 13, nine people from Punjab were killed near Noshki, Balochistan when gunmen forced them off a bus they were travelling in and shot them, officials said. Another attack on a separate vehicle killed two people. The nine victims were from Punjab, all of whom were men, and hailed from Wazirabad, Mandi Bahauddin, and Gujranwala, according to identity documents.
In an attack carried out in May 2024, seven barbers hailing from Punjab were killed in the coastal town of Sarbandan, around 25km east of Gwadar, according to officials. There were eight people living in those quarters and one person was shot in both legs but left alive. The victims, who worked in local barber shops, were sleeping in a rented residential quarter when unknown assailants barged into the place at around 3am and opened fire.
The deceased barbers were identified as Mohammad Sajid, Adnan Ahmed, Haseebullah Qureshi, Asadullah Qureshi, Ansar, Shan and Muqarab.
