QUETTA: Gunmen opened fire on a bus in the Mastung area of Balochistan, carrying passengers to Iran on Tuesday, killing around 20 Shia pilgrims, police said.

“The bus was travelling to the town of Taftan when it was attacked,” a police official in Quetta, the provincial capital, told Reuters.

The bus was carrying 60 passengers in total and was attacked by unknown armed men from both the sides.

Police and rescue workers have still not reached the site. Locals and passengers are taking the wounded pilgrims to nearby hospital.

Earlier in June, a group of armed men opened fire on a bus carrying pilgrims from Balochistan to Iran, killing two people and injuring nine others.

The attack occurred near the western bypass near Quetta.

The passenger coach, which was on its way from Quetta to Taftan, was carrying 50 passengers when it was attacked near the Akhtarabad area.

The assailants escaped after the attack. Police and other law-enforcement agencies took the bodies and the injured to the Bolan Medical College Hospital, sources at the hospital said.