Quetta: Gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a moving bus in Pakistan and killed four women from the Shiite Muslim minority in an apparent sectarian attack, officials said Tuesday.

The gunmen sprayed the vehicle with bullets in the outskirts of Quetta city, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan.

"At least two motorcycle riders on one bike fired at the bus when it reached close to Hazara town. Two people, one male and another female, were also wounded in the attack," Abdul Razzaq Cheema, a senior police official told AFP.

"The bus was travelling from one locality of Hazaras to the other," Cheema said.

Qambar Dashti, Quetta city commissioner, confirmed the attack and said it could be sectarian.

"This attack on Hazaras' bus could be sectarian but we are still investigating it," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Taliban militants have attacked Shiite Hazaras in the past.

Sectarian violence – in particular by Sunni hardliners against Shiites who make up roughly 20 percent of Pakistan's 200 million people – has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade.

In May last year, 43 members of the Shiite Ismaili minority were killed when their bus was stopped and riddled with bullets in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi by militants claiming Islamic State group affiliation.

Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has oil and gas resources but is afflicted by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and a separatist insurgency. </s> Four Shiite women killed in Pakistan bus attack

Gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a moving bus in Pakistan and killed four women from the Shiite Muslim minority in an apparent sectarian attack, officials said Tuesday.

The gunmen sprayed the vehicle with bullets in the outskirts of Quetta city, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"At least two motorcycle riders on one bike fired at the bus when it reached close to Hazara town. Two people, one male and another female, were also wounded in the attack," Abdul Razzaq Cheema, a senior police official told AFP.

Pakistani security officials and residents gather around ambulances carrying the bodies of Shiite Muslim women killed in an attack by gunmen at a hospital in Quetta ©Banaras Khan (AFP)

"The bus was travelling from one locality of Hazaras to the other," Cheema said.

Qambar Dashti, Quetta city commissioner, confirmed the attack and said it could be sectarian.

"This attack on Hazaras' bus could be sectarian but we are still investigating it," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Taliban militants have attacked Shiite Hazaras in the past.

Sectarian violence -- in particular by Sunni hardliners against Shiites who make up roughly 20 percent of Pakistan's 200 million people -- has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade.

In May last year, 43 members of the Shiite Ismaili minority were killed when their bus was stopped and riddled with bullets in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi by militants claiming Islamic State group affiliation. </s> QUETTA: At least four women belonging to the ethnic Hazara Shia community were killed and one injured when unidentified assailants opened fire on a bus on Kirani road near Pud Gali Chowk area of the provincial capital on Tuesday evening.

"The bus was stopped and the women were shot because of their ethnicity," said provincial government's spokesman Anwarul Haq Kakar.

A senior police official also confirmed to Dawn.com that the deceased women belonged to the ethnic Hazara Shia minority community and were allegedly targeted due to their sect.

"It was a public transport bus and had eight women on board, out of which five were hit during the attack," said DIG Operations of Quetta police.

Police officials said the bus was travelling to Hazara Town when it was attacked by unidentified assailants.

Frontier Corps and police teams were dispatched to the area to control the situation. The injured were taken to Bolan Medical Hospital in Quetta for treatment and security in and around the hospital was tightened.

Chief Minister Balochistan Sanaullah Zehri condemned the incident.

Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, while addressing a press conference, said that Indian agency RAW's involvement can not be ruled out in the attack.

He added the terrorists picked a soft target, and all efforts would be made to arrest the culprits.

Balochistan has been experiencing incident violence and targeted killings since more than a decade. More than 1,400 incidents targeting the minority Shia and Hazara community have taken place in the province during the past 15 years.

While sectarian terrorism in Balochistan has disproportionately targeted the Hazara community, easily identifiable because of their distinctive physical appearance, other Shias — especially pilgrims travelling to and from Iran — have not been spared either.

People receive the body of a family member at a local hospital in Quetta.— AP </s> QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say gunmen have killed four women in an attack on a bus carrying members of the country’s Shiite minority in the southwestern city of Quetta.

Police spokesman Shahzada Farhat says another woman and a man were wounded in Tuesday’s attack. Farhat says the attackers fled the scene on motorcycles and that police have launched a search operation.

No one claimed the attack, but the Lashker-e-Jhangvi group has claimed similar attacks on Shiites in the past. Sunni Muslim extremists view Shiites as apostates deserving of death.

Pakistani authorities had heightened security across the country to protect Shiites during the month of Muharram, when they mourn the 7th century martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. </s> QUETTA, Pakistan — A Pakistani official says gunmen have ambushed a bus and killed 14 passengers after forcing them off the vehicle on a highway in the country's southwest.

Local official Jehangir Dashti says it was unclear who was behind the killings before dawn Thursday.

He says about three dozen people were traveling to the southwestern port of Gawadar when gunmen stopped the bus and killed 14 people after checking their identity cards. The motive behind the killings is not known.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings but Baluchi separatists often target security forces and people from Punjab, who tend to dominate the ranks of the military stationed in Baluchistan whom the separatists are fighting.

Separatists have waged a low-level insurgency in Baluchistan, demanding a fairer share of the province's resources. </s> At least seven persons were killed in two separate firing incidents in different localities of Quetta city on Monday. In the evening, four members of the Christian community travelling in a rickshaw were killed in a firing incident on Quetta’s Shah Zaman road. Police official Muhammad Anwar Khokhar said unidentified attackers riding a motorbike opened fire on a rickshaw which resulted in the death of four members of the Christian community. A minor girl was also injured in the attack, he added.

 Law enforcement agencies reached the site of the incident soon after the incident and shifted the bodies to Civil Hospital Quetta. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack; moreover, police have also been unable to ascertain any reason for the incident.In a separate incident earlier in the day, three people were killed and four injured in a firing incident on Quetta’s Qmbrani road. </s> QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday ambushed a bus on a highway and killed 14 passengers after forcing them off the vehicle, a local official said.

The official, Jehangir Dashti, said it was unclear who was behind the killings, which took place before dawn.

He said about three dozen people had been on the bus, traveling to the southwestern port of Gwadar, when gunmen stopped it and killed 14 people after checking their identity cards.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings. </s> QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen wearing Pakistani police and paramilitary uniforms ambushed a bus before dawn Thursday and killed 14 people after going through their ID cards and forcing them out on a remote part of a coastal highway in restive southwestern Baluchistan province, officials said.

Hours after the ambush, a new separatist group claimed responsibility for the killings. The attack drew nationwide condemnation and Prime Minister Imran Khan called it “an act of terror.”

Separatists in Baluchistan frequently target Pakistani security forces and also people from neighboring Punjab province. Punjabis, a different ethnic group from the Baluch, tend to dominate the ranks of the military units stationed in Baluchistan that the separatists are fighting.

The attack took place as the bus was traveling on the Makran coastal highway between the port city of Karachi and the Gwadar port in the southwest, said local official Jehangir Dashti.

Dashti said the passengers targeted in the attack were killed after the assailants checked their identity cards but he could not confirm if all the slain were Punjabis.

Security personnel also frequently use buses to travel to their jobs in Gwadar, a port built through investments and help from China.

“Dozens of gunmen” were involved in the attack and fled the scene afterward, Dashti said.

“In this tragic incident, 14 passengers were forced off the bus, they were lined up in a nearby open area and killed by the terrorists,” he said.

Security forces from the nearby town of Buzi Top were dispatched and had reached the area, about 375 miles from the provincial capital, Quetta, he added.

Little is known about the newly formed separatist Baloch Raji Aajoi Sangar group, which claimed responsibility for the attack. </s> Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb claimed by a Sunni Muslim militant group ripped through a fruit market in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday.

The attack hit the city's Hazarganji district, which is home to a large community from the Hazara Shia Muslim minority, Quetta's Deputy Inspector General of Police, Razzaq Cheema, told CNN.

At least seven Hazara were among the dead, along with one security official, Cheema said.

Family members of the blast victims comfort each other outside a mortuary in Quetta, Pakistan, after bomb went off at an open-air market in the southwestern city.

In a news conference, Ziaullah Langove, home minister for Balochistan, said it was a suicide attack, confirmed the death toll and added that as many as 48 people were injured.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group known to target the Hazara community, said it carried out the bombing.

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An apparent sectarian attack by two motorcyclists who open fire on a bus traveling to Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan, kills four women from Pakistan's Shia Hazara and injures two other people.