ORMARA: Pakistan on Saturday lodged a strong protest with Iran for not taking action against the perpetrators who forcibly offloaded 14 passengers from a bus and shot them dead on the Makran Coastal Highway in Ormara, Balochistan.
The Foreign Office sent a letter of protest to the Iranian Embassy in Islamabad.
It stated that,”15-20 terrorists who camouflaged themselves in Frontier Corps (FC) uniform barricaded the road and stopped 3-4 buses traveling from Ormara to Gwadar on the coastal highway at Buzi Top in the dawn of April 18 and on the identification of the passengers, shot dead 14 personnel belonging to the armed forces of Pakistan. BRAS which is the alliance of three Baloch terrorist organisations have claimed responsibility for this terrorist act.”
“After the incident, the terrorists who arrived from border region returned to that area,” the letter added.
The foreign office stressed that Pakistan “has repeatedly shared intelligence about these activities” with Iran.
“The information about the hubs of these Baloch terrorist organisations in Iran, having training camps and logistics bases across the border, was shared with Iranian intelligence in the recent past, and on a number of occasions earlier,” the letter read, adding that, “Unfortunately, no action has been taken by Iran in this regard, to date.”
It further said, “Killing of 14 innocent Pakistanis by terrorists groups based in Iran is a very serious incident that Pakistan protests strongly. Pakistan awaits Iran’s response to its request for action against these groups based in Iran, whose locations have been identified by Pakistan a number of times.”
On Thursday, according to Levies sources, 15-20 unidentified armed men intercepted five coaches travelling between Karachi and Gwadar near the Buzi Top area. The assailants checked the identity cards of passengers and offloaded 16 of them. They then opened fire, killing 14 of the offloaded passengers as two managed to escape from the scene.
