QUETTA, Pakistan: A separatist militant group in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday (May 4) claimed an attack on a prison van in which five police officers were taken hostage.
Between 30 and 40 gunmen blocked a major highway that cuts across Balochistan province overnight on Friday, intercepting a prison van being transported by a police team, a police official said.
“The prisoners were released later but five policemen have been kidnapped,” a senior police official in the area, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP on Sunday.
He said a rescue operation was underway.
The gunmen also set fire to government buildings and a bank in the area.
A senior government official, who asked not to be named, said that two gunmen were killed by security forces.
Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces, foreign nationals and non-locals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active group in the region, claimed the assault in the Kalat district.
The BLA has previously targeted energy projects receiving foreign financing, most notably from China.
In March, the group seized a train, taking hundreds of passengers hostage and killing off-duty security forces in a three-day siege.
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