KARACHI, Aug 26: Heavily-armed Baloch gunmen killed at least 37 people in separate attacks in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province on Monday, as insurgent attacks spiked in the region bordering Afghanistan.
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According to the government and security officials, on the intervening night between Sunday and Monday, militants belonging to outlawed separatist groups carried out four attacks leading into Monday in which 37 people were killed.
The Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan Army, in a statement, said that 21 terrorists were also killed in cleanup operations launched after the attacks.
Earlier, Baloch gunmen killed at least 37 people in two separate attacks in Balochistan province on Monday.
In the first incident, at least 23 people from Pakistan’s Punjab province were killed in a targeted attack in Balochistan’s Musakhel district after gunmen offloaded them from buses and checked their identities.
According to Musakhail Assistant Commissioner Najeeb Kakar, around 10 heavily-armed men blocked the inter-provincial highway in the Rarasham area of the district and offloaded passengers from several buses.
“The dead are reportedly from Punjab,” he said. Apart from killings some of the vehicles were also set on fire.
Musakhel is approximately 450 kilometres northeast of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.
The rebels regularly target people from the Punjab province by alleging that Punjabis are dominant in the armed forces which have been fighting the militants in the province.
Senior Superintendent of Police Ayub Khoso said: “The passengers were told to get down from buses and shot dead after being identified from their national ID cards,” Khoso said.
“Most of those killed belonged to southern Punjab and some are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suggesting they were killed because of their ethnic background,” he added.
In another incident, officials said that 11 people were killed in Kalat also in Balochistan, including five civilians and six security personnel, authorities said.
Kalat is 150 km to the south of Quetta and is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Baloch tribes.
The banned militant organisation, Baloch Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for these attacks, which coincided with the 18th death anniversary of ethnic Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti who was killed in a military operation.
The militant groups co-named its violence ‘Operation Heroof’ and simultaneously launched a slew of attacks in various districts of the province.
The Kalat attack came shortly after militants on Monday stopped passenger buses and trucks in the Rarashim area of the Musakhel district offloaded 23 passengers and shot them dead after identifying them as mostly passengers from Punjab.
“They carried out the attack early in the morning and then escaped into the nearby mountains,” SSP Kalat, Dostain Dashti said on telephone.
The attacks took place in the Rarashim area of Musakhel district where militants offloaded passengers mostly belonging to Punjab and shot 23 of them while in Kalat district in another attack on a security check post, they killed 10 people, including the paramilitary Levies personnel and policemen.
Four other security personnel were killed in another attack in Kolpur area of Bolan district while in the Kadkucha area in Mastung district, militants also attacked a Levies post compound and left a body behind.
The militants also blew up a bridge on a main railway track in Bolan.
Balochistan province has been the centre of clashes between separatist groups and security personnel for a while now and militants have frequently carried out attacks targeting workers, labourers or pilgrims passing through or working in Balochistan.
These groups have also frequently targeted security and government personnel and installations in different parts of the province.
Four months back, nine passengers from Punjab were also killed similarly in the Noshki district after gunmen checked their ID cards while last October six labourers from Punjab were killed in the Tech district.
In May, seven barbers also belonging to Punjab were slain by unidentified gunmen while sleeping in their quarters in the coastal area of Sarbandan, approximately nine miles from the Gwadar Port.
The killings of innocent passengers in the Rarashim area of Musakhel district after unloading them from trucks and identifying them from their ethnicity is one of the worst terror attacks carried out by the separatist militants in recent times.
Balochistan government spokesperson Sadiq Rind said Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti had ordered continuous operations against the militant groups.
“These cowardly militants took advantage of the night and stopped trucks on the highway before killing those people,” he said.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack, Radio Pakistan reported.
Expressing grief and sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the despicable incident, they prayed for the departed souls and condoled with the bereaved families.
Zardari said the brutal killing of innocent people was the killing of the entire humanity and called for the culprits to be brought to justice.
Prime Minister Sharif directed the local administration to fully cooperate with the bereaved families and provide medical aid to the injured. He also directed the law enforcement agencies to immediately investigate the incident.
“The terrorists responsible for this incident will be severely punished,” the premier vowed, adding that any kind of terrorism was not acceptable in the country.
Both the president and the prime minister expressed Pakistan’s unwavering commitment to eradicate the menace of terrorism.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti strongly condemned the incident of terrorism.
He expressed heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of those who died in the cowardly act of terrorists.
The terrorists and their facilitators will not be able to escape an exemplary end, he said, adding that the Balochistan government will pursue the terrorists.
In a separate terrorist attack, a railway bridge was blown up in Bolan’s Dozan area, said police.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province but, although it has more resources than other provinces, it is the least developed.
The BLA and other Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Punjabis and Sindhis from elsewhere in Pakistan working in the region. They have also targeted foreign energy firms they accuse of exploiting the region without sharing profits.
There were at least 170 militant attacks in Balochistan last year which killed 151 civilians and 114 security personnel, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. (Agencies)
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