The incident happened hours after a separatist organization called the Baluch Liberation Army urged people to avoid roadways, even though no one immediately claimed credit.
In one of the bloodiest assaults in the restive southwest of Pakistan, gunmen identified themselves and shot and killed 23 passengers after removing them from buses, cars, and trucks, police and authorities reported on Monday.
Baluchistan province’s Musakhail district is where the killings took place overnight, said to senior police officer Ayub Achakzai. Before escaping the area, the assailants set fire to at least ten cars.
In a another incident that happened early on Monday, gunmen in Baluchistan’s Qalat district slain at least nine people, including five bystanders and four police officers. In other regions of the province, there have also been reports of gunshots.
Railroad traffic was disrupted in the province’s region of Bolan after insurgents blew up a railway track. In Baluchistan’s Mastung area, a police station was also assaulted by gunmen, although no injuries were recorded.
In separate remarks, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and President Asif Ali Zardari referred to the incident in Musakhail as “barbaric” and promised that those responsible would face consequences.
Naqvi later denounced the murders in Qalat as well.
The banned Baluch Liberation Army separatist organization began attacks on security personnel in several sections of the province, warning civilians to avoid roadways, hours before the attack in Musakhail. However, no one took instant credit for the killings that occurred last night.
Separatists frequently demand identification cards from people before kidnapping or murdering Punjabi and other provincial residents.
In May, seven barbers in Gwadar, a port city in Baluchistan, were shot and killed by gunmen.
Separatists kidnapped nine individuals in April from a bus on a Baluchistan highway; in addition, the assailants killed two and injured six others in a different automobile that they forced to halt. At the time, BLA took credit for those attacks.
The most recent assassinations of non-Baluch individuals, according to security analyst Syed Muhammad Ali of Islamabad, are an attempt by separatists to do economic harm to the province.
The majority of these attacks, according to Ali, are intended to undermine Baluchistan’s economy. He stated that “the weakening of Baluchistan means the weakening of Pakistan” in an interview with The Associated Press.
According to him, the province’s development efforts might be hampered by rebel attacks.
In an effort to compel people from the eastern Punjab area of the country to leave Baluchistan, where there has been a low-level conflict for years, separatists have frequently slain laborers and other locals.
The majority of these prior killings have been attributed to the banned organization and those who are calling for their country’s independence from Islamabad’s federal authority. The province is also home to violent Islamists.
