New Delhi: In a bone-chilling incident, 14 people traveling in a passenger bus on Makran Coastal Highway in Quetta were shot dead after being offloaded on Thursday morning.

As per sources, the armed men stopped the bus and offloaded some of the passengers after asking for their identities. "After scanning their identities and offloading, the gunmen shot dead 14 passengers," the sources said.

Immediately after the incident the bodies were shifted to a nearby health facility in Ormara.

Levies personnel reached the site of the incident and launched an investigation.

Information Minister Fawad Chauhdry said there appears to be an "organised pattern" in the attack on members of Hazara community, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Hayatabad and the shooting on the passengers of the bus.

The incident comes a week after twenty people, including eight Hazara, were killed and 48 others injured in a suicide blast in Quetta's Hazarganji sabzi mandi.

An investigation is underway.