Abdullah Zehri
August 26, 2024
Security personnel stand near the charred vehicles at the shooting site on the national highway in Musakhail district, Balochistan on August 26, 2024. — AFP
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At least 23 people have been killed in Balochistan’s Musakhail district after armed men offloaded passengers from trucks and buses early Monday morning and shot at them after checking their identities, an official said.
According to Musakhail Assistant Commissioner Najeeb Kakar, armed men blocked the inter-provincial highway in the Rarasham area of the district and offloaded passengers from several buses.
The perpetrators stopped buses, vans, and trucks, one after the other on a highway connecting Punjab with Balochistan, AC Kakar told
AFP.
“The numbers of the militants were between 30 to 40. They stopped 22 vehicles,” he said. “Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot.”
Those killed were reportedly from Punjab, the official said.
AC Kakar added that the armed men also set fire to 23 vehicles, including 17 trucks, two passenger vans and four pick-up vehicles.
The police and Levies officials reached the spot and began shifting the bodies to the hospital, Kakar said.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active militant group in the province, claimed responsibility for the attack, marking it as one of the worst shootings in the region in recent years.
This is the second attack of such nature this year. In April, nine passengers were offloaded from a bus near Balochistan’s Noshki city and
shot dead after gunmen checked their ID cards.
There were at least 170 militant attacks killing 151 civilians and 114 security personnel in Balochistan last year, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
Similar attacks have taken place over the past few years.
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.
In 2019, gunmen stopped a bus near Ormara near Gwadar district, and
shot dead 14 people, including personnel of the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guards, after checking their CNICs.
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. The victims belonged to Sindh and Punjab.
Security concerns have heightened after back-to-back incidents of terrorism, including several
attacks across Balochistan, which have left 11, including security personnel, dead.
In response, security forces
killed 12 terrorists and injured several others.
In a
statement issued by his ministry on social media platform X, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi vowed to “bring forward the facts along with evidence after investigations” into the attacks.
“These destructive incidents are a conspiracy to create instability in Pakistan. The enemy wants to create anarchy in the country under a well-thought plan,” Naqvi said.
Vowing to take “every possible step” to restore law and order in Balochistan, the minister asserted: “The terrorists and their enablers would not be able to find a place to hide.”
Naqvi further said he was in contact with the Balochistan government and that effective steps were being taken to “maintain an atmosphere of peace” in the province.
“If someone thinks that by such cowardly acts, they can defeat the nation’s unwavering determination, they are mistaken,” Naqvi said.
He added that the law and order situation in Balochistan was being monitored on a regular basis.
