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February 20, 2025 | 03:52 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Separatist gunmen shot dead seven passengers on a Lahore-bound bus in southwestern Pakistan's Balochistan province on Tuesday after forcing them off the vehicle and checking their identity documents, officials said.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the biggest of several ethnic armed groups battling the central government, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the victims were all working for the military and its intelligence wing.
Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, is a major battleground in Pakistan's fight against separatist insurgents, who want greater autonomy and a share of the region's natural resources.
In recent months, there has been a surge in attacks on security forces, Chinese infrastructure projects and workers from richer central Punjab province, whom the militants see as exploiting Baloch resources.
The group of around 40 men stopped multiple buses and vehicles along a highway in Balochistan's Barkhan district, checking national identity cards before pulling seven passengers off the bus and shooting them, senior government official Waqar Khurshid Alam told Reuters.
All seven victims were from Punjab, Alam said.
"Armed men dragged my elder brother from the bus after checking his identity card, but they did nothing with us," a woman from the city of Faisalabad in Punjab said in a video seen by Reuters.
The BLA said in a statement the men were the "enemy's secret agents" who were spying for the military and involved in state violence against the Baloch people.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the gunmen would be brought to justice.
"Those who harm the lives and property of innocent citizens will have to pay a heavy price," he said in a statement.
The killings are a bloody reminder of a roadside attack in August, when armed men shot dead 23 people after checking passenger IDs and later setting the vehicles on fire.
That attack, also claimed by the BLA, was part of a wave of violence by separatist militants in Balochistan targeting police stations, infrastructure, and civilians. At least 73 people were killed.
On Friday, a bomb targeting a vehicle carrying coal miners killed at least 11 people and wounded six others. No group has claimed responsibility.
The Baloch Liberation Front, another separatist group, said on Friday it had carried out eight separate attacks on security forces in the past week, but not the one on the coal miners.
REUTERS | Saleem Ahmed
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