Daily Times

QUETTA: As many as five people, including three Hazaras, were killed and one injured as unidentified gunmen targeted a vehicle carrying members of the Hazara community on the city’s Kasi Road early Monday.

According to police officials, the deceased include the vehicle’s driver and a passerby as well — both not Hazara.

The victims were on their way to Sabzi Mandi from Mariabad when their vehicle was targeted by the unidentified assailants, who were riding a motorcycle.

The gunmen escaped unhurt after carrying out the attack, which appears to be an act of targeted killing, police officials added.

The bodies and injured were shifted to a nearby hospital.

Later, four of the bodies were handed over to their families in Quetta, hospital officials said, adding that one of the deceased is still in the morgue as he hails from Shangla, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Hazara community members were identified as Ali, Khadim Hussain and Syed Sarwar while the passerby was identified as Saleh.

Police and other law enforcement agencies personnel reached the site after the incident and started an investigation.

No one has claimed responsibility for the target killing.

Sectarian violence has claimed thousands of lives in Pakistan over the past decade. Hundreds of ethnic Hazaras, who are Shias by sect, have been killed in targeted bombings and drive-by shootings over the past few years in Balochistan.

Published in Daily Times, October 10^th 2017.