By IANS/EFE,
Mexico City : A bus was hijacked in a northern Mexican state to recruit the male passengers as gunmen in drug gangs, according to witnesses.
The bus, heading for the border with the US, was stopped by armed men in San Fernando city in Tamaulipas state. The armed men forced young men off the bus and let the rest of the passengers go, the Reforma newspaper reported citing witnesses’ accounts.
The young men taken off the bus were led away by the gunmen, it said.
Several drug cartels operate in Tamaulipas, a state on the border with Texas.
Some gangs have resorted to using unusual methods to recruit gunmen because of high casualties in the gang war being waged by rival drug traffickers for control of territory, the federal government said.
Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent drug cartel, is suspected of murdering 72 migrants in August last year after they refused to join the organisation.
The dangerous situation has forced bus companies operating near the US border to suspend service, affecting thousands of people, media reports said.