Gunmen attacked two passenger buses in Pakistan's Balochistan province, before carrying out targeted ethnic killings, authorities said on Friday.
Buses traveling from Balochi capital Quetta to Punjab province were stopped in the Zhob and Loralai districts. Gunmen took several passengers off the buses and shot them dead, according to official reports.
"They dragged out 10 passengers — seven from one coach and three from the other — and took them away. I don’t know what they did to them, but I heard gunfire as we were leaving," a survivor from one of the buses told Pakistani daily Dawn.
The bodies were recovered in the mountains with bullet wounds, government official Naveed Alam told reporters.
Punjabis targeted in Balochistan attack
The gunmen had blocked the road in the Zhob and Loralai districts of Sur-Dakai area near the N-70 highway and stopped and boarded two passenger coaches which were on the way to Punjab province.
They checked the ID cards of passengers and asked ten of them with Punjab addresses to get off the buses. Nine of them were then abducted, sources told Dawn.
Ashfaq Chaudhry, an administrator in Punjab's Dera Ghazi Khan district, said the attacks appeared to have targeted Punjabis.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the "brutal killing of passengers" and blamed the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), saying they wanted to "spread chaos and instability in Pakistan."
The BLA is the strongest insurgent group that operates in the mineral-rich region bordering Afghanistan and Iran. They demand independence from Pakistan's central government.
The group has frequently attacked military bases or people from Punjab who travel to Balochistan for business or employment. A similar attack took place in February, resulting in the death of seven Punjabi bus passengers.
