Quetta: Four members of a Christian family were gunned down in southwestern Pakistan on Monday, police said, in the latest attack on the minority community.
The family was travelling in a rickshaw when armed men on a motorcycle intercepted them and opened fire in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
A woman was rushed to hospital. Her father and three cousins were killed.
“It appears to have been a targeted attack,” provincial police official Moazzam Jah Ansari said. “It was an act of terrorism.” The attack comes a day after Pakistan’s Christian community celebrated Easter on Sunday. Around 2 per cent of Pakistan’s population are Christians.
Minority religious festivals are a security concern in the majority Sunni country where there have been a number of high casualty attacks on Christians and Shias.
Balochistan, a region bordering Iran as well as Afghanistan, is plagued by violence by Sunni sectarian groups linked to the Taliban, al Qaida and Islamic State. It also has an indigenous ethnic Baloch insurgency fighting against central government.
The family killed on Monday had come to visit relatives in the Shahzaman road area, where a large number of Christians live.
(Source:telegraphindia)