GILGIT, July 21: Hundreds of foreign and domestic tourists have left Gilgit and adjoining areas due to escalating tension in the town that persisted on the fourth day on Thursday. The tension and panic started gripping Gilgit town when unidentified assailants gunned down five passengers of a bus and wounded six others on Karakoram Highway on Sunday night near Chilas.

The bus was going to Rawalpindi. The sources said tension heightened in Gilgit and suburbs on Wednesday when unidentified gunmen shot dead three people apparently in a tit-for-tat action.

The dead included a union council chairman, taking the toll in the fresh spate of violence to eight.

The sources said that on Wednesday night one more person was shot at and badly wounded in Jutial area where some arsonists also burnt shops.

Almost all shopping markets and business centres in Gilgit and traffic remained off the road on Thursday and a few people could be seen on abandoned roads, streets and markets and passengers avoided visiting Gilgit from adjoining areas.

Huge contingents of police and Rangers were deployed in the troubled areas of Sonikote and Kashroot to ward off further clashes, the sources said.