Baloch gunmen massacre 40 people in two separate attacks in Pakistan's restive Balochistan

Karachi: Heavily-armed Baloch gunmen killed at least 40 people in two separate attacks in Pakistan's Balochistan province on Monday, as insurgent attacks spiked in the restive region bordering Afghanistan.

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.

According to Musakhail Assistant Commissioner Najeeb Kakar, around 10 armed men blocked the inter-provincial highway in the Rarasham area of the district and offloaded passengers from several buses.

“The dead are reportedly from Punjab,” he said. Apart from killings some of the vehicles were also set on fire.

Musakhel is approximately 450 kilometres northeast of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.

The rebels regularly target people from the Punjab province by alleging that Punjabis are dominant in the armed forces which have been fighting the militants in the province.

Senior Superintendent of Police Ayub Khoso said: “The passengers were told to get down from buses and shot dead after being identified from their national ID cards,” Khoso said.

“Most of those killed belonged to southern Punjab and some are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suggesting they were killed because of their ethnic background,” he added.

In another incident, officials said that 11 people were killed in Kalat also in Balochistan, including five civilians and six security personnel, authorities said.

Kalat is 150 km to the south of Quetta and is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Baloch tribes.

Security sources told Geo News that terrorists attacked multiple sites in Balochistan on the night of August 24 and 25.

The banned militant organisation, Baloch Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for these attacks, which coincided with the 18th death anniversary of ethnic Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti who was killed in a military operation.

The militant groups co-named its violence 'Operation Heroof' and simultaneously launched a slew of attacks in various districts of the province.

The Kalat attack came shortly after militants on Monday stopped passenger buses and trucks in the Rarashim area of the Musakhel district offloaded 23 passengers and shot them dead after identifying them as mostly passengers from Punjab.

“They carried out the attack early in the morning and then escaped into the nearby mountains,” SSP Kalat, Dostain Dashti said on telephone.

He said security forces had launched a massive search operation in the area and were hunting for those who carried out the attack.

Security sources also confirmed that militants of separatist groups had also made attacks in some other parts of the province apart from Musakhel and Kalat on the night between Sunday and Monday but security forces had responded quickly and thwarted their attacks.

“The vigilance of the security forces who are now chasing them down in some areas has already led to the death of 12 terrorists,” one source said.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack, Radio Pakistan reported.

Expressing grief and sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the despicable incident, they prayed for the departed souls and condoled with the bereaved families.

Zardari said the brutal killing of innocent people was the killing of the entire humanity and called for the culprits to be brought to justice.

The Prime Minister directed the local administration to fully cooperate with the bereaved families and provide medical aid to the injured. He also directed the law enforcement agencies to immediately investigate the incident.

“The terrorists responsible for this incident will be severely punished,” the premier vowed, adding that any kind of terrorism was not acceptable in the country.

Both the president and the prime minister expressed Pakistan’s unwavering commitment to eradicate the menace of terrorism.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti strongly condemned the incident of terrorism.

He expressed heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of those who died in the cowardly act of terrorists.

The terrorists and their facilitators will not be able to escape an exemplary end, he said, adding that the Balochistan government will pursue the terrorists.

In a separate terrorist attack, a railway bridge was blown up in Bolan’s Dozan area, said police.

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province but, although it has more resources than other provinces, it is the least developed.

The BLA and other Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Punjabis and Sinhdis from elsewhere in Pakistan working in the region. They have also targeted foreign energy firms they accuse of exploiting the region without sharing profits.

The attacks come nearly four months after a similar attack targeting people from Punjab. In April, nine passengers were offloaded from a bus near Noshki and shot dead after gunmen checked their ID cards.

In October last year, unidentified gunmen fatally shot six labourers hailing from Punjab in Turbat in Balochistan’s Kech district. According to the police, the killings were targeted. All victims belonged 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 labourers’ camp near Turbat.

There were at least 170 militant attacks in Balochistan last year which killed 151 civilians and 114 security personnel, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.