According to Inspector General of Police Mohsin Hassan Butt, 15-20 unidentified armed assailants stopped 5-6 buses travelling between Karachi and Gwadar. The assailants were wearing uniforms of the Frontier Corps, Dawn reported.
Between 12:30-1am, the assailants stopped the bus, checked identity cards of the passengers and offloaded at least 16 of them, IGP Mohsin Butt said. According to a local official, Jehangir Dashti, some three dozen people were travelling in the bus.
IGP Butt said that these were 'targetted killings' as the passengers were offloaded on the basis of their ID cards and then shot at close range. 14 were shot dead, while two managed to escape the massacre and made it to the nearest Levies checkpost.
A naval official and a coast guard member were among those killed, the home secretary said.
Levies and other security officials reached the spot and launched an investigation into the matter. No one has claimed the responsibility of the attack yet.
Home Minister Zia Langove told AFP that a full-scale investigation had been launched into the attack and to track down the gunmen. "Such incidents are intolerable," he said.
A similar incident took place in Balochistan's Mastung area in 2015, when armed men kidnapped about two dozen passengers from two Karachi-bound coaches and killed at least 19 of them in the mountainous area of Khad Kocha.