MULTAN: A speeding bus carrying mostly laborers traveling home for a major Muslim holiday rammed into a container truck on a busy highway in central Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 33 people and injuring 40, police and rescue officials said.
The bus had left the city of Sialkot and was traveling on Taunsa Road; its destination was the city of Dera Ghazi Khan in eastern Punjab province, said senior police officer Hassan Javed. The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation, he said.
Rescuers transported the dead and injured to a nearby hospital. According to Sher Khan who was in charge of the rescue team at the site, some of the injured were in critical condition. He said the bus driver was among the 33 killed in the accident.
Khan said the passengers were traveling to their home district of Rajanpur to celebrate the upcoming Eid Al-Adha feast.
TV footage and photos circulating on social media showed rescuers trying to pull out bodies from the badly mangled bus. In one image, some of the injured are seen sitting near the bus, waiting for medical help.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry expressed his condolences on Twitter and advised public transport drivers to be more careful of the lives of the people they have been entrusted with.
“When will we as a nation realize that the violation of traffic rules is fatal,” he said.
Deadly accidents are common in Pakistan due to poor road infrastructure and disregard for traffic laws.
Bus crashes in Pakistan, killing 33 people and injuring 40
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Bus crashes in Pakistan, killing 33 people and injuring 40
- Speeding bus was carrying mostly laborers traveling home for the Eid holiday
- It rammed into a container truck on a busy highway in central Pakistan on Monday
Pakistan arrests suspect arriving from Cambodia amid crackdown on human smuggling
- Suspect worked at an “online fraud company” in Cambodia, later started smuggling people from Pakistan, says FIA
- Pakistan has intensified crackdown against human smugglers after hundreds of migrants drowned near Pylos in 2023
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday said it had arrested a key suspect involved in smuggling humans who had arrived from Cambodia, alleging he was also part of an international fraud network.
The suspect, identified as Zainullah, was arrested by FIA officials when he arrived in the southern port city of Karachi from Cambodia.
Zainullah had traveled from Pakistan to Cambodia in September 2024, a press release issued by the agency said.
“He worked at an online fraud company in Cambodia and later became involved as an agent in recruiting individuals from Pakistan,” the FIA said.
The FIA said it recovered images of multiple individuals’ passports, payment receipts and bank transaction records after extracting data from Zainullah’s phone.
It said the suspect received money through personal bank accounts and a cryptocurrency account.
“The suspect has been handed over to the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle, Karachi, for further legal proceedings,” the FIA said.
“Further investigation is underway.”
Pakistan intensified action against illegal migration in 2023 after hundreds of migrants, including 262 Pakistanis, drowned when an overcrowded vessel sank off the Greek town of Pylos, one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Mediterranean.
Authorities say they continue to target networks sending citizens abroad through dangerous routes, following heightened scrutiny at airports and a series of arrests involving forged documents.
Pakistan’s interior ministry said this week illegal migration to Europe has declined by 47 percent this year after its nationwide crackdown, saying that more than 1,700 human smugglers have been arrested in 2025.
