Five bullet-riddled bodies found hanging from an electric pole in Pakistan last week, who were identified as Afghan nationals, have been returned to their families, Kabul’s embassy in Islamabad said on Thursday.

The bodies were discovered on Friday near a college in Dalbandin city, close to the borders with Afghanistan and Iran in Balochistan.

No individual or group has so far claimed responsibility for the killings.

Police investigating the killings said last week they suspected that the victims may be the same group who appeared in a viral video on social media, making confessio­nal statements about the murder of Murad Note­zai, a prominent leader of the Iran-based banned militant organisation Jaish al-Adl.

However, officials and independent sources have yet to confirm whether the bodies found are of the same individuals who appeared in the video, or if they are unrelated individuals killed due to personal vendettas.

A statement from the Afghan embassy in Islamabad issued today said the bodies were handed over to families at the Spin Boldak-Chaman border crossing on Wednesday.

Their consulate in Balochistan made “serious efforts” to return the bodies to waiting relatives in Afghanistan.

“The five Afghans were brutally killed by unknown people,” said the statement shared with AFP on Thursday.

Some 600,000 Afghans have travelled to Pakistan since the Taliban took back power in 2021 and implemented their austere version of Islam.

Since last year, however, Islamabad has waged a campaign to evict huge numbers of undocumented Afghans, as relations with Kabul soured over security.