QUETTA, Pakistan – Pakistani police are searching for gunmen who killed eight people after kidnapping them from a bus on a highway in the country’s southwest, a police officer said on Saturday. Earlier, the same attackers killed two people and injured six in another car that they forced to stop.
According to the police official, the kidnapping took place on Friday in the province of Balochistan, which has long been the scene of an insurgency by separatists fighting for independence.
Deputy Commissioner Habibullah Mosakhail said the gunmen blocked, then stopped the bus and examined the passengers’ identity cards. They took with them eight people, all from the eastern province of Punjab, who fled to the mountains, he said.
Police later recovered eight bodies under a bridge about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the highway. On Friday morning, the same gunmen opened fire on a vehicle that failed to stop during the blockade, killing two and injuring six.
A search for the perpetrators was underway, Mosakhail said. The bus was going from the provincial capital of Quetta to Taftan, a city on the border with Iran.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack, expressing his “deep sadness and regret over this shocking incident.” He offered his condolences to the victims’ families and said he supported them in their time of grief, according to a statement from his office.
“The perpetrators of this incident of terrorism and their facilitators will be punished,” Sharif said.
Kidnappings are rare in Balochistan, where militants generally target police forces and soldiers or infrastructure.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the murders. Police said there was no ransom demand and no indication of a motive for the attacks.
Although the government says it has suppressed the insurgency, violence in the province has persisted.
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