At least seven labourers from Punjab province were killed by separatist militants in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, police said on Sunday.

Pakistan's Balochistan province has been rocked by a series of attacks on Punjabi workers by separatist militants. Baloch nationalist groups accuse the central government and China of stealing the province's resources.

"Seven labourers have been gunned down by unknown armed men ... in Khuda-i-Abadan area of Panjgur town," Senior Superintendent of Police in Panjgur, Syed Fazil Shah told Reuters, adding one other labourer was injured.

Seven labourers from Punjab were killed by unidentified gunmen in Balochistan's Panjgur town. One worker was injured. This incident follows a series of violent events in August involving separatist militants targeting various locations.

The workers were all from the same town in Punjab, which is in Pakistan’s east. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but separatists in Balochistan have often killed workers and others from Punjab to force them to leave the southwest,

Pakistani authorities said Sunday suspected insurgents killed at least seven workers and abducted 20 others at gunpoint in two attacks overnight in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province. The violence occurred in the Panjgur and Musakhail districts of the sparsely populated insurgency-hit province,