In another terrorist’ strike in the mountains of Pakistan at least 23 people from Punjab were reported killed in Balochistan Musakhel district. Accompanied by sporadic gunfire, armed men stopped trucks and buses, removed the passengers, and then shot them dead, claiming that the travelers were ‘Punjabi’ said Dawn citing some officials. In an interview, Assistant Commissioner Musakhail, Najeeb Kakar said that the attackers set up a check-point on the inter-provincial highway in the Rarasham district of Musakhel and then proceeded to attack. Majority of the casualties were described to be people from Punjab. The attackers also burnt down 10 automobiles, said a senior officer of the provincial police.
This comes almost a month after, another similar act was committed on a bus in which nine passengers were removed, their I. D cards scrutinized and were shot by the gunmens in April. Earlier in the same month of the previous year, unidentified gunmen shot dead six labourers from Punjab in Turbat of Kech district of Balochistan province. These targeted killings created the smell that the victims were mainly chosen from the basis of race since all of them were from different parts of Southern Punjab.
A similar incident happened in 2015 in which gunmen attacked a laborers’ camp in Turbat, Balochistan and killed 20 construction workers and injured three. The people who fell prey to that attack were from Sindh and Punjab provinces and this again reflected how the ethnic violence was not a new phenomenon in the context of Pakistan.
