On the 18th of April, unidentified men dressed in paramilitary uniforms shot 14 passengers to death on a highway in Balochistan after forcing them to get off a bus.
Fifteen to 20 gunmen stopped five to six buses travelling between Karachi and Gwadar. After entering and checking the identity cards of the passengers, the gunmen forced 16 passengers to disembark and shot them, out of which 14 of them died and 2 managed to escape alive.
The incident took place around midnight (local time) on the Makran Coastal Highway in the Ormara area. According to Inspector General of Police Hassan Butt, the attacks were not random but were targeted.
The Chief Minister of Balochistan Jam Kamal said, the attacks took place in the guise of routine bus checks. Condemning the horrible incident, Kamal said these were happening to slow down the progress of Pakistan’s second largest province.
In a report given by Muhammad Musa, a local health inspector, all the bodies were shot dead at gunpoint. Confirming the news, Provincial Home Minister Zia Langove said, a search party has been sent to find the people who committed the act.
“We will definitely look at the security precautions on the route, but it is a very long route from Karachi to Gwadar. We have many security posts, but whenever terrorists want to carry out such attacks, they can target [vehicles] in remote locations,” said Langove while confirming the news.
The Balochi Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS,) an alliance of the armed ethnic Baloch separatist groups, sent out an email blast claiming responsibility for the attacks.
While the group was identified, the Pakistan Government is still unsure as to whether the victims belonged to the security forces.
Stay tuned for more updates.
