Gunmen shot dead 16 people in two separate incidents in Quetta, officials said on Saturday. The first incident took place in Aab-e-Gum area, 75 kilometres south-east of Quetta on Friday night. "A group of 30-35 gunmen stopped the bus in Aab-e-Gum area, offloaded passengers at gunpoint and shot dead 10 of them," top provincial home department official Akbar Hussain Durrani told AFP.

He said the bus was travelling to Quetta from Lahore and all those killed in the attack were Punjabi-speaking people. A senior local official in Aab-e-Gum area, Ismail Kurd, confirmed the incident and casualties. In another incident, two men riding a motorbike killed six people in Quetta on Saturday, senior police official Hamid Shakeel told AFP. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010