Gunmen identify, kill 7 Punjabi travelers in Pakistan: govt official

QUETTA: Gunmen in volatile southwest Pakistan shot seven bus passengers dead after identifying them as being from another region, a government official said Wednesday.
Attackers late on Tuesday burst the tires of a bus that was traveling on a highway through Balochistan, close to the provincial border with Punjab, said Saadat Hussain, a senior government official in the area.
Gunmen boarded the bus and demanded to see the identity cards of passengers, after which Punjabis were taken off the bus.
“The passengers belonging to Punjab province... were taken off by the terrorists and killed,” Hussain told AFP.
“Later they were lined up and shot dead.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in the impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.