Gunmen kill two Hazara Shias in Pakistan's southwest
Gunmen have killed two members of Pakistan’s Hazara Shia community in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
Balochistan police said Saturday that the gunmen attacked the two Hazara Muslims as they were travelling from the provincial capital of Quetta to their hometown in a suburb of the city.
“Two unknown gunmen sprayed bullets on the van in which Izzatullah and Muhammad Hussain were traveling,” Mukhtar Ahmed, chief of the local police station, said, adding, “Izzatullah, who was driving the van, was killed on the spot while Hussain died on the way to hospital. The gunmen fled from the scene after firing.”
Other officials confirmed more killing of the Shias over the past days, saying similar shootings happened in the same Hazara town on Friday and Wednesday.
“Two Hazara brothers were fired at on Friday near the same locality of Hazara town and one of them was killed, while another is seriously injured. Likewise another member of the community was killed on Wednesday when he arrived at his auto workshop,” said senior police official Abdul Waheed Khattak.
Fresh attacks on members of the Hazara community have already concerned officials in Pakistan as a major military offensive against militants on the border led to a lull in such shooting attacks. In July, Pakistani police managed to nab members of a major anti-Shia militant group, including its leader.
Thousands of people have been killed over the past decade as a result of a surge in violence in Pakistan, with many of them members of the Shia community, which makes up almost 20 percent of the country’s population of 200 million.
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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