QUETTA: Gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Shiite Muslims in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Thursday killing eight, police said, just days ahead of the month of Moharram.
The attack took place at a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province.
“At least nine Hazara Shiites were sitting in a minibus after buying vegetables when two gunmen opened fire on them with automatic weapons, killing eight of them and wounding another one,” senior local police official Imran Qureshi told AFP.
City police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema also confirmed the incident and casualties.
A rescue worker at the site said the blood-soaked dead bodies had fallen on top of each other, many struck by bullets to the head. They were later shifted to an area hospital.
Police and paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) troops cordoned off the area and pushed onlookers away, fearing a follow-up bomb attack.
Moharram, considered particularly holy for Shiites, is due to begin on Saturday or Sunday depending on the sighting of the new moon.
The month has frequently been marred by violence in recent years. Clashes between Sunnis and Shiites led to at least 11 deaths in the city of Rawalpindi, close to the capital Islamabad, last November.
Ethnic Hazaras have taken the brunt of rising sectarian violence in Baluchistan in recent years. They are often singled out for attack because their Central Asian features make them easily identifiable.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said last week as many as 200,000 Hazaras had fled Baluchistan over the past 10 years, either relocating in the country’s major cities or seeking asylum abroad.
At least 24 Hazara pilgrims were killed in June when their bus was targeted by suicide bombers.
Two devastating bombings in Quetta targeting the city’s Shiites killed nearly 200 people last year and were claimed by militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has links to Al-Qaeda.
Hours after the attack on Shiites, another bomb targeted an FC convoy in Quetta, killing two passers-by and injuring 12 others.
“This bomb was planted in a motorcycle parked on the Qambrani road. Two passers-by were killed as a result of this blast and 12 others were wounded,” Cheema said.
A FC spokesman and a police surgeon confirmed the attack and casualties.
Vast and sparsely populated but rich in resources, Baluchistan has long been racked by a separatist insurgency.
Around 1,000 Shiites have been killed in the past two years in Pakistan, a heavy toll on the community that makes up roughly 20 per cent of the country’s 180 million-strong population, most of whom are Muslim.
