News / Pakistan

Militants shoot dead 20 passengers in southwestern Pakistan

Friday, 29 May 2015 7:43 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 30 May 2015 2:14 AM ]

Residents gather around an ambulance carrying dead bodies of killed bus passengers outside a hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on May 30, 2015. (AFP photo)

A group of heavily armed militants have shot dead at least 20 passengers and injured several others after taking them hostage from two buses in the troubled southwestern Pakistan.

This came after more than two dozen assailants attacked the buses in the Mastung district of the southwestern Balochistan province on Friday evening.

Local security officials say the militants abducted several passengers and then shot at least 20 of them dead in an execution-style murder.

Meanwhile, Provincial Information Minister Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal said on Friday night that the gunmen still hold some passengers and that the operation to recover them is still underway.

No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but pro-Taliban militants have been blamed for such attacks in the past.

*Relatives of Pakistani passengers gather outside a hospital in southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on May 30, 2015. (AFP photo)*

The latest attack occurred as several buses carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims have been attacked by militants in recent months across the troubled province which borders Iran.

Every year millions of Muslim pilgrims flock to the holy shrines in the Iranian cities of Mashhad and Qom.

In another bus attack on May 13, pistol-wielding gunmen massacred nearly 50 Ismaili Shia Muslims in the southern port city of Karachi. The attack was claimed by the pro-Taliban Jundullah terrorists, which had previously allied themselves to the ISIL Takfiri group.

Pakistan’s Balochistan province has seen several gun and bomb attacks over the past couple of years.

Pro-Taliban militants and some Baloch militant groups have carried out numerous attacks against security forces as well as civilians despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in the so-called war on terror. Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping across the country.

JR/AS/MHB

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Pakistan