QUETTA - Unidentified gunmen on Wednesday killed two shopkeepers from Shiite minority when they opened fire in a congested market in Quetta, the second such attack in a week.
Police said two other Shiite shopkeepers and a passerby were wounded in the attack in central Quetta.
“The attackers came on motorcycles and opened fire indiscriminately, killing two cloth merchants and wounding two shopkeepers and a passerby,” Quetta police chief Abdul Razzak Cheema told AFP.
Quetta was already tense following the killing of four people, three of them Shiites, in the city on Monday.
Senior police official Aitzaz Goraya confirmed the attack and casualties and told AFP that police were searching for the attackers.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but Baluch rebels demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years and the province is also riven by sectarian strife and militant violence.
Sectarian violence has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade. This month, 45 Shiites were massacred in Karachi.
Meanwhile, at least 69 suspicious people were apprehended in a joint operation by police and Frontier Corps (FC) in Quetta on Wednesday.
According to the details, police and FC personnel conducted a raid in the area of Satellite Town in Quetta and nabbed as many as 29 people whereas at least 40 people were arrested for being involved in criminal activities.
The detainees have been shifted to undisclosed place for interrogation.
Moreover, security officers have also claimed of confiscating weapons from their possession.
8 TERRORISTS
ARRESTED IN LASBELA
The FC in a search operation in Lasbela arrested eight terrorists after exchange of firing on Wednesday.
According to details, the search operation was launched by the FC on intelligence reports that some terrorists were hiding in the area. When the FC team reached near their hideout, the terrorists started firing but the security force personnel overpowered them.
FC spokesman said that the terrorists wanted to carry out activities in Hub, Bela and other adjoining areas.
Fourteen rifles, nine machine guns and walkie talkie sets were also recovered from their custody. They were shifted to undisclosed location for interrogation.