8 killed, 17 injured in separate terror attacks in Pakistan's Balochistan

The attack occurred in the Gwadar district of the province when armed men killed five passengers of a Karachi-bound bus in the Kalmat area overnight.

Karachi: At least eight people were killed, 17 injured and three abducted in two separate terror attacks by suspected insurgents in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province since Wednesday.

A bomb exploded near a police vehicle in the Barech Market area of Quetta on Thursday, killing two people and injuring 17 others.

Balochistan government spokesperson Shahid Rind said that an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was hidden in a motorcycle which detonated near a parked police vehicle.

He said the injured were rushed to the civil hospital and the conditions of four of them were critical. Earlier, on Wednesday night, insurgents shot and killed six people from Punjab after offloading them from a passenger bus in the Gwadar district.

They also abducted three passengers before disappearing into the mountains.

The attack occurred when armed men stopped a Karachi-bound passenger bus from Gwadar near the Kalmat area on the Ormara highway late on Wednesday, said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hafeez Baloch.

He said that five of the passengers were killed instantly while one survivor passed away later in hospital Thursday morning, raising the death toll to six.

“Armed men killed six passengers after checking their ID cards and took away three others,” he said, adding that all victims belonged to the country's Punjab province.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past, ethnic Baloch terrorist groups carried out such targeted attacks against the people of Punjab.

The militants also stopped three long-body trailers carrying urea from Gwadar port by setting up roadblocks and setting them on fire.

Security forces moved towards the area where militants had blocked highways, with operations to clear the roads underway.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the killing of passengers.

“The terrorists are the enemies of the country’s development and prosperity in Balochistan. They cannot see progress in Balochistan,” Zardari said.

Shehbaz ordered that the injured be provided with the best possible medical treatment and that an investigation be carried out to identify and punish the perpetrators. “We will never allow the anti-state designs of miscreants to succeed,” he said.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti took to X to condemn the incident and said, “Offloading innocent passengers from a bus and murdering them based on their identity is a heinous and cowardly act.” He pledged that the “war against hardcore terrorists would continue and they would be brought to justice by all means”.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks on security forces and civilians in recent months and it is not the first time that militants have stopped passenger buses and offloaded people from Punjab province and killed or kidnapped them.

In a separate incident in the Sohbat area of the Naseerabad division in the province, armed men attacked a residence and killed seven people of the same family including a woman and three children.

Police said the brutal killings were the result of a land dispute between two groups. The attacks come amid a tense situation in the province as earlier this month, terrorists belonging to the banned separatist outfit Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) hijacked the Jaffar Express carrying 440 passengers. The hijacking resulted in the killing of 26 hostages, including 18 security personnel.

The Army eliminated all 33 terrorists the next day and rescued 354 hostages.

Since then, multiple attacks have taken place across Balochistan.

Earlier this week, unidentified armed men killed four policemen and four labourers in two separate incidents.

On March 17, five people including four children were injured in a grenade attack on the residence of a Station House Officer (SHO) in the province.

A day earlier, five people, including three Frontier Corps (FC) personnel, were killed and 30 injured after a paramilitary convoy was attacked by suspected Baloch militants on a highway in Noshki district.

Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is home to a long-running violent insurgency.

Baloch insurgent groups frequently carry out attacks targeting security personnel, government projects and the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in this oil and mineral-rich province.