Bodies of nine passengers, who were gunned down in Noshki, Balochistan yesterday as they were on their way from Quetta to Iran for their onward journey to Europe, have been sent to their towns and cities in Punjab on Sunday.
Earlier, Deputy Commissioner Dera Ghazi Khan Shahid Zaman and Commandant Border Military Force Muhammad Asad Khan received the bodies at Punjab, Balochistan border. Before sending the bodies, funeral prayers for the deceased were offered in Quetta.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, inspector general of police, Balochistan and other senior officials of the provincial government offered the prayers. Two passengers give eyewitnesses’ account
Zahid Imran and Tahir, two passengers from Punjab, who fortunately remained safe, have reporters that the assassins stopped the coach, entered it and then asked “who were the passengers who belonged to Punjab and who were the ones who were locals?” Then they separated the Punjabis from the rest of the passengers, whisked them away, and shot them dead.
Imran and Tahir informed that the gunmen did not ask them about their ethnic backgrounds because the women sitting on the seats next to them told the gunmen that they were accompanying them. On the other hand, the people of Balochistan have strongly condemned the killings of unarmed and innocent passengers from Punjab at the hands of Baloch militants.
Terrorists have no religion, no ethnicity, they have said, adding that a group of terrorists is bent upon bringing a bad name to the Baloch people and creating obstacles in the way of progress and prosperity of the province.—INP
