Roadside executions the latest grim chapter for Pakistan’s oldest insurgency

CNN —

Truck driver Munir Ahmed was motoring along a darkened highway after a long day unloading sacks of rice in Pakistan’s Sindh province late Sunday, when he crossed over into Balochistan.

After entering the impoverished province, long seething with ethnic and economic resentments, he was “stopped by armed men wearing military-style uniforms,” pulled from his vehicle and added to a crowd of other captives, he told CNN.

“When they got down from the trucks, they were asked to show their identity cards. After checking the identity card, four people were taken aside and armed men started firing indiscriminately at them,” the 45-year-old said.

Ahmed saw three men die in front of him before he lost consciousness, having taken five bullets to his arms and legs. In total, 23 people were executed on the highway that night.

The mass roadside executions were the biggest of six separate attacks by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) on Sunday and Monday that killed 54 people in total, including 14 security personnel. The coordinated onslaught was sophisticated, with militants simultaneously targeting a police station and a military base, as well as highways and railway lines.

It was the deadliest day of the year so far for Pakistan, the latest flare-up in a long-running insurgency driven by inequality, ethnic resentments and colossal Chinese investments.

Somehow, Ahmed survived. The father of six young children had been assumed dead, but when his bullet-riddled body reached the hospital in Quetta, Balochistan’s biggest city, doctors quickly realized he was alive. He is still in critical condition.

Truck driver Munir Ahmed, seen here on August 28, was shot five times after being stopped by members of the the Baloch Liberation