Bodies of slain passengers in Balochistan bus killing sent to Punjab hometowns

The bodies of nine bus passengers who were kidnapped and killed in Balochistan’s Sardhaka area last night were recovered and transported to their hometowns in Punjab on Friday morning, officials said.

On Thursday night, at least nine passengers travelling on two Punjab-bound coaches were abducted and killed by unidentified armed men in the Sur-Dakai area, situated on the border between Balochistan’s Zhob and Loralai districts, Assistant Comm­issioner Naveed Alam said a day ago.

Provincial government spokesperson Shahid Rind also confirmed the incident and said that Fitna-al-Hindu­stan — a term the government uses for terrorist organisations in Balo­chistan — had carried out attacks at three different places — Kakat, Mastung, and Sur-Dakai.

The Balochistan Liberation Front, a banned outfit, later claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the group said it had killed the nine individuals after blocking the highway between Musakhail-Makhtar and Khajuri.

Alam told Dawn.com on Friday that the bodies of all nine passengers were handed over to a political agent in the Sakhi Sarwar district of Dera Ghazi Khan to be handed over to their families.

He said that seven of the passengers had been identified but two could not be identified due to a lack of documents

“The terrorists must have taken the passengers’ identification documents with them,” AC Alam said.

Of the seven passengers identified, two were residents of Lodhran, while one passenger each were residents of Dera Ghazi Khan, Gujrat, Attock, Khanewal and Gujranwala.

The country’s top leaders strongly condemned the incident and vowed action against the perpetrators “at all costs”.

In a statement today, President Asif Ali Zardari said: “This barbarity is part of Fitna-al-Hindustan’s evil conspiracy to spill blood in Pakistan,” state-run Radio Pakistan reported.

He reaffirmed commitment to “clear the land of Fitna-al-Hindustan and its facilitators at all costs”.