Islamabad, May 30 (IANS): Hundreds of Pashtuns protested on Saturday in Pakistan's Balochistan province after unidentified militants hijacked two buses and killed 22 passengers. The protesters also refused to bury the dead until the government offered them protection.

Unidentified gunmen late Friday attacked two passenger buses that were en route to the port city of Karachi in the Mastung area of Balochistan and abducted 35 passengers and killed 22, Geo News quoted provincial Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti as saying.

Soon after the incident, security forces rushed to the site.

The minister added that security forces rescued six of the abducted passengers and were chasing the militants to rescue the other passengers.

This was the second bus attack within a month. Earlier, on May 13 at least 46 people were killed when gunmen opened indiscriminate fire inside a bus carrying people of the Shia Ismaili community in Karachi.