23 killed in Pakistan bus attack, gunmen identified passengers, shot them

At least 23 people were killed in a terrorist attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan on Monday morning. The incident took place in Balochistan’s Musakhel district.

An official stated that the terrorists forced the passengers to disembark from the bus and shot them after checking their identities. Terrorists blocked the inter-provincial highway in the Rarasham district of Musakhel and offloaded the passengers from buses, Dawn reported, while citing Assistant Commissioner Musakhail Najeeb Kakar.

Police reached the spot and shifted the bodies to the hospital.

“The dead are said to be from Punjab,” he was quoted as saying by Dawn in its report. No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack till now.

The terrorists also set fire to 10 vehicles, he added.

Condemning the incident, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti expressed sympathy and condolences to the families of those who were killed.

Calling out the “brutality of terrorists,” Pakistan’s Federal Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, said, “The terrorists showed brutality by targeting innocent passengers near Musakhail. The terrorists and their facilitators will not be able to escape an exemplary end.”

Speaking with Geo News, Pakistan’s Punjab government spokesperson, Azma Bukhari, expressed anger over the incident.

The Musakhel attack follows a disturbing pattern of violence, echoing a similarly brutal incident from nearly four months ago. In that earlier attack, which occurred in April, nine passengers were forcibly removed from a bus near Noshki and executed after gunmen verified their identities through ID checks, Dawn reported.