QUETTA : Four people, including three minority Shia Muslims, were killed and nine others injured in three separate firing incidents of sectarian violence that broke out in the restive Baluchistan province of Pakistan.
The firing incidents took place yesterday after the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the failed bomb attack on the son of Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain on Sunday night in the Hub industrial area in which three people were killed and a dozen injured.
Police officials said the trouble in Quetta city erupted when a Hazara shopkeeper was shot dead and two others injured by unidentified men on a motorcycle on the Fatima Jinnah road market.
“Soon after his killing members of the Hazara Shia Muslim community came on the roads and started protesting and set tyres on fire and stoned shops and forced them to shutdown,” City Police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said.
He said minutes later some armed men opened fire on two buildings on Jinnah road just one kilometre away in which three persons including two Hazara men were killed and several injured.
Two men were killed in one of the buildings Saleem complex while one man was killed and four others injured in Kabir complex, the police official said.
SSP Aitzaz Guraya said the situation escalated after news spread of the firing on the two buildings with more members of the Hazara community and Shia Muslims protesting the killings in other parts of the city.
He said heavy contingents of police and Frontier Corps then controlled the situation in the city.
“It appears today’s killings and violence were sectarian in nature and aimed at creating trouble in the city,” he said.
Rescue officials said at some places Shia and Sunni Muslims had clashed with each other but later dispersed.
Baluchistan Chief Minister Dr Malik Baluch condemned the killings and violence.
“Elements are attempting to disturb the peace of the provincial capital but the government won’t allow anyone to violate the law,” he said in a statement.
“Our united government is very keen to establish peace in the province and we are onboard with law enforcement agencies against the sectarian violence,” the statement added. (AGENCIES)
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