Militants shoot dead two Shia Muslims in southwestern Paksitan
A group of heavily-armed militants have shot dead two Shia Muslims and injured some others in Pakistan's troubled southwestern province of Balochistan, security sources say.
A senior regional police official said on Wednesday that the casualties were caused after militants opened fire in a congested market in central Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan Province.
"The attackers came on motorcycles and opened fire indiscriminately, killing two cloth merchants and wounding two shopkeepers and a passerby," media outlets quoted police chief Abdul Razzak Cheema as saying.
Sources said the assailants managed to flee the scene before security sources cordoned off the area.
No group or person has yet claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but pro-Taliban militant groups have been blamed for such attacks in the past.
The latest attack comes two days after three members of the Shia Hazara community lost their lives in a shooting attack by unidentified attackers in the volatile city.
Quetta, also the largest city of Balochistan, has seen several gun and bomb attacks over the past couple of years. A large number of Shia Muslims have been killed in militant attacks there.
Also on May 13, pistol-wielding gunmen in Pakistan massacred nearly 50 Ismaili Shia Muslims in the southern port city of Karachi. The attack was claimed by the pro-Taliban Jundullah terrorists, which had previously allied itself to the ISIL Takfiri group.
Several Shia religious gatherings have been attacked in different parts of the country in recent years.
The country’s Shia leaders have called on the government to form a judicial commission to investigate the ongoing bloodshed and targeted killings.
Sunni groups have also strongly condemned the carnage of the Shia Muslims at the hands of the extremists and described the issue as a conspiracy against the country.
The unabated killings of Shia Muslims have caused an international outrage, with international organizations and regional countries expressing concern over the ongoing deadly violence.
JR/HMV/GHN
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