NAWABSHAH, May 25: In what is being described here as the first gory incident of its kind in Sindh, five gunmen attacked a bus on the National Highway near Qazi Ahmed town here on Friday and killed six passengers and the driver. Six people were injured.

The assailants managed to escape on motorcycles which they had parked nearby. The injured were taken to the rural health centre in Qazi Ahmed. One of them was shifted to the People’s Medical University Hospital in a serious condition.

The dead were identified as driver Abdul Ghaffar, 60; Shahzad Iqbal, 40 (from Attock); Mohammed Murqib, 27 (Attock); Gul Raiz, 33 (Swabi); Saifullah, 44 (Mianwali); Arsalan, 19 (Taxila); and Mohammed Arif, 40 (Swabi).

According to coach cleaner Nadeem Khan, a man boarded the Attock-bound bus coming from Karachi in Sakrand. He said he would go to Rawalpindi and his five companions would join him in Rein Shakh near Qazi Ahmed.

He said the man had bought tickets for his companions. At Rein Shakh, five armed men boarded the bus and asked Sindhi passengers to get down and three people left the bus. Soon after the gunmen started firing on the passengers.

Qari Ameen, one of the injured passengers, made the similar statement while talking to reporters at the hospital. He said women and children cried for help as the attackers went on firing.

Police and law-enforcement personnel reached the place and recorded statements of witnesses. Police found pamphlets of “Sindhu Desh Liberation Army” near the bus. Qazi Ahmed DSP Sardar Khan Chandio told Dawn that similar pamphlets had been found after recent explosions on railway tracks and outside National Bank branches in the district.

In similar incidents a few days ago, armed men set ablaze two Punjab-bound trawlers on the National Highway near Doulatpur and Shahpur Jehanian in which one driver died and the other suffered serious injuries.

M. Hussain Khan adds from Hyderabad: DIG Hyderabad Sanaullah Abbasi said some suspects had been detained in connection with the bus attack and were being interrogated. However, he said it was too early to say anything more at the moment as police were investigating the incident from different angles.

According to some reports, the assailants announced after the firing that they had avenged the killing of Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) leader Muzaffar Bhutto and others. The blood-soaked pamphlets found at the place carry the names of Muzaffar Bhutto and other JSMM leaders who have died either in custody or under mysterious circumstances.

No case about the incident was registered till late night.