QUETTA: Armed men killed nine bus passengers after kidnapping them in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, officials said on Friday, with Pakistani leaders promising a crushing response to militants.
The attackers took the passengers with them after intercepting two buses on the N-70 highway in Balochistan’s Zhob district, according to Yasin Mandokhail, in-charge of a local Levies paramilitary force station.
Their bodies were found in the nearby mountains in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. No group has claimed responsibility for the killings — the latest involving commuters hailing from the eastern Punjab province.
Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said security forces immediately responded to the attack but the attackers fled under the cover of darkness and that a thorough search operation was being conducted to hunt down the perpetrators.
“The state will not let these murderers hide even under the ground,” Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said in a statement.
“Every terrorist plan will be crushed with strength, determination and unity.”
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but most impoverished province, has been the site of a long-running insurgency that has intensified in recent months, with separatist militants attacking security forces, government officials and installations and people from other provinces, particularly Punjab, the country’s most populous and prosperous province and a major recruitment base for the military.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the strongest of a number of insurgent groups operating in the mineral-rich region bordering Afghanistan and Iran who accuse the central government of stealing their resources to fund development in Punjab. The federal government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan, where China has been building a deep-sea port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
The bodies of the victims were sent to their hometowns in Punjab on Friday noon, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif blaming the assault on “Fitna Al-Hindustan,” a reference to alleged Indian-sponsored separatist groups.
“We will deal with terrorists with full force,” he said, denouncing the assault. “The blood of innocent people will be avenged.”
Islamabad accuses India of backing the separatists in Balochistan as well as religiously motivated militant groups, like the Pakistani Taliban, in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. New Delhi denies the allegations.
Last August, nearly two dozen passengers were killed after BLA militants forcibly removed them from Punjab-bound buses in a string of coordinated attacks in Balochistan. Another seven Punjabi commuters were offboarded from buses and killed in Balochistan’s Barkhan district in February this year.
In March, BLA separatists hijacked a train that carried hundreds of passengers near Balochistan’s Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed.
On Thursday, Pakistan Railways also suspended the train service from Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta to the rest of the country for a day after law enforcement agencies shared security concerns.
