QUETTA - Gunmen shot dead two Shias who had emigrated from neighbouring Afghanistan almost a decade ago to escape violence there, police said Sunday.
Two men opened fire Saturday night on the family, from Afghanistan's Hazara community, who were at a bus station in Quetta preparing to travel to Karachi.
"A man of about 65 years of age and his 18-year-old grandson were killed in the firing at the bus terminal at Sariyab Road," Imran Qureshi, a senior police official, told AFP. Two other men and two women family members managed to run away and take shelter. The gunmen escaped on a motorbike. Qureshi said the family had migrated from Afghanistan almost a decade ago to escape war in their homeland. A man describing himself as a member of the banned Jaish-ul-Islam called media outlets to claim responsibility for the attack. Balochistan province is torn both by a separatist insurgency and violence directed against Shias. They make up around 20 percent of Pakistan's population. According to a report by a Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shias were killed in targeted attacks across the country in 2013.