Gunmen kill two Hazara Shias in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan
Unidentified gunmen have killed two members of Pakistan’s Hazara Shia community in an attack in the country's troubled southwest.
A Pakistani police official said the fatalities occurred in the suburbs of Quetta, the provincial capital and largest city in Balochistan province, on Monday.
"Gunmen on a motorcycle stopped the rickshaw and then opened fire on them and fled the scene," said Abdullah Jan Afridi, a senior police officer in Quetta, adding that the victims, from the Hazara minority group, were laborers in a coal mine.
Afridi said investigations into the deadly assault are underway, adding that it seems to be a “sectarian attack.”
No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the killing yet.
The troubled province of Balochistan, which is rich in gas and mineral resources, has been the scene of violence and numerous attacks over the past years.
Islamabad has been engaged in a major offensive against militant hideouts. Pakistan’s army has intensified military operations against militants since pro-Taliban elements killed over 150 people, most of them children, in an armed assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.
Thousands of people have been killed over the past decade as a result of the surge in violence in Pakistan.
Many of the victims have been members of the Hazara Shia community, which have been regular targets for kidnapping and murders.
The worst attack on Hazara Shias came in early 2013, when more than 180 members of the community were killed in two bombings in Quetta.
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