QUETTA: Balochistan police’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) has registered the FIR of Noshki attack in which nine men from Punjab were killed after being off-loaded from a bus.

Officials said the FIR was registered against unknown armed men on the complaint of Noshki police station SHO Asadullah Mengal.

The relevant provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and other laws have been added to the FIR.

The CTD officials have also launched a probe into the attack.

The nine men, hailing from Punjab were travelling on a bus from Quetta to Taftan on the Pakistan-Iran border.

The attackers, who had set up a cordon on the N-40 Quetta-Noshki Highway, intercepted the coach and looted the belongings of passengers, including cash and mobile phones.

After checking the identity cards of the passengers, the gunmen separa­ted the nine passengers and took them away. Their bullet-riddled bodies were later dumped under a bridge in a hilly area of Noshki.

The outlawed Balochistan Libe­r­a­tion Army had claimed respo­nsibility for the killings.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2024