Armed men have killed at least 38 people in three assaults amid other reported incidents of violence in Balochistan province in southwestern Pakistan.

Several buses and trucks were stopped overnight on Sunday by armed men who checked passengers’ IDs before shooting 23, setting 10 vehicles ablaze and escaping in the remote area of Rarasham in Musakhail district.

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Elsewhere in the province, nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, were shot dead in Qalat district.

On the same day, six people were killed as a railway track was blown up in Bolan, a police station in Mastung was attacked, and several vehicles were burned in Gwadar city of Balochistan.

The province has had a simmering rebellion for years, with several armed groups present. Rights groups have denounced Pakistan’s response to the movement, which they document as including enforced disappearances and other forms of state repression.

The attacks, along the highway that connects to the province of Punjab, came shortly after the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) warned people to stay away from highways in the province.

In a statement, the group said its fighters targeted military personnel travelling in civilian clothes, who were shot once they were identified.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior, however, said the dead were innocent citizens.

“Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot,” Najibullah Kakar, a senior official in Musakhail, told the AFP news agency.

The injured were moved to a hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan, the nearest large medical facility.

People inspect a burned-out vehicle torched by attackers after they killed passengers on a highway in Musakhail [Rahmat Khan/AP]

President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in separate statements called the Musakhail attack “barbaric” and pledged that the attackers would not get away with it.

Uzma Bukhari, a spokesperson for the Punjab provincial government, denounced the assaults as “a matter of grave concern” and called on the Balochistan provincial government to “step up efforts to eliminate BLA terrorists”.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti also promised that the attackers would be brought to justice.

According to local media, 12 rebel fighters were killed by security forces throughout the province in the past 24 hours.

Similar past attacks in Balochistan have been claimed by the BLA, such as the killing of seven barbers in Gwadar in May, or the April killings of several people abducted from a highway.

Armed groups like the BLA in the resource-rich but otherwise impoverished province have secessionist aims, often targeting labourers from Punjab coming to the area to work.