At least 14 passengers were forcibly offloaded from a bus on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan’s Ormara area and shot dead by unidentified assailants early on Thursday, reported the Dawn.
According to Balochistan Inspector General of Police Mohsin Hassan Butt, around 15-20 unidentified armed assailants in camouflage reportedly stopped five or six buses travelling between Karachi and Gwadar. Balochistan Home Secretary Haider Ali told AFP that the assailants were wearing Frontier Corps uniforms.
In the Buzi Top area, between 12:30am and 1am, the gunmen stopped a bus, checked the identity cards of passengers and offloaded about 16 of them, the IGP said. According to a local official, Jehangir Dashti, said some three dozen people were travelling in the bus.
IGP Butt explained that it was a “targeted killing”. The victims were identified via their CNICs and shot at close range, he said.
At least 14 were shot dead, while two passengers managed to escape the massacre and made it to the nearest Levies checkpost. They were shifted to Ormara Hospital for treatment.
A naval official and a coast guard member were among those killed, the home secretary said.
Levies and other law enforcement personnel reached the spot and launched an investigation into the incident. The bodies of the victims were recovered from Noor Baksh Hotel.
The motive behind the killings and the identity of the victims are yet to be ascertained. No one has claimed responsibility for the killings.
