At least 11 people were killed in gunmen’s attack in southwestern Pakistan . Officials said this on Saturday. The police continued the search operation to nab the suspected separatists.

Police say six gunmen stopped a bus near Naushki town in Balochistan province around 8pm on Friday and abducted nine laborers from the eastern province of Punjab after checking the identity of the people.

Senior local police officer Alah Baksh said that later the bodies of these workers were recovered from two kilometers away from the highway.

Naushki District Administration Officer Habibullah Musakhail said police and paramilitary forces launched a combing operation to nab the attackers. But the attackers managed to escape at that time.

Meanwhile, two people were killed when the same attackers targeted the vehicle of a provincial parliament member.   The MP was not in the car at the time of the attack. Notably, ethnic separatists have been waging an insurgency in the poorest Balochistan for decades.

The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif referred to the Friday night attack as a terrorist incident and said that those responsible will be brought to justice.