No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Quetta-Taftan Highway.
Gunmen killed 11 people in two separate attacks in Balochistan province in southwestern Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, officials said.
Police searched Saturday for the attackers who killed nine people after kidnapping them from a bus on a highway on Friday. The same attackers also killed two people in another car that they forced to stop.
Deputy Commissioner Habibullah Musakhel said the gunmen set up a blockade, then stopped the bus and searched passengers’ IDs. They took nine people with them, all from the eastern province of Punjab, and fled to the mountains. Police later recovered nine bodies under a bridge about five kilometers from the highway.
The attack occurred on Quetta-Taftan Highway N-40 near Sultan Charhai near Noshki, involving 10 to 12 gunmen, Musakhel also told Pakistani daily Dawn.
Earlier on Friday, the same gunmen opened fire on a vehicle that tried to stop because of their blockade, killing two people and wounding six. A search for the perpetrators is underway, said Musakhel.
Passenger Sajjad Ahmed said there were 70 people on the bus. Masked men stopped the bus near the town of Nushki, picked up nine people and told the driver to continue the journey, he told The Associated Press.
“We heard the gunmen opening fire on these people as we drove away,” he said. “We heard shots. The driver took the bus to the nearest police station. We didn’t know if these people were alive or not.”
Witness Zahid Imran, 46, told AFP that as the attackers boarded the bus, they insulted the kidnapped travelers and said: “You Punjabis are killing our children, get up and come with us.”
“terror incident”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed his “deep sadness and regret over this shocking incident.”
He expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and said he stood with them in their hour of grief, a statement from his office said.
“The perpetrators of this terrorist incident and their supporters will be punished,” Sharif said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred around 8:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT) on Friday.
Kidnappings are rare in Balochistan, where armed groups typically target police forces and soldiers or infrastructure.
Separatist ethnic Baloch groups in the mineral-rich region have been fighting the state for decades, saying it denies them their share of regional resources.
Punjabis are the largest ethnic group in Pakistan and are considered dominant in the ranks of the military, which is fighting Balochistan’s armed factions.
Baloch civilian leaders claim their communities are subjected to a state-sanctioned regime of extrajudicial killings and disappearances and that they are punished for political dissent.