Drive-by shooting: Senior official among three killed near Quetta

Gunmen on motorcycle opened fire on a car going from Pishin to Quetta. PHOTO: FILE

QUETTA: A senior government official and two others were killed in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday on the outskirts of Kucklack, some 25 kilometres from the provincial capital.

Muhammad Saeed, the assistant director of local governments in Pishin district, and his office superintendent, Yasin, were travelling to Quetta from Pishin when gunmen opened fire on their car with automatic weapons, according to the police.

The pair died instantly and their driver sustained critical gunshot wounds. The injured driver, identified as Muhammad Akbar, was driven to Quetta’s Civil Hospital – but he succumbed to his injuries before he could be provided treatment, medics said.

Muhammad Saeed belonged to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa while Yasin was a member of the Hazara community, a local ethnic group which is Shia by sect.

A purported spokesperson for the banned sectarian extremist outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Abu Bakar Siddiq claimed responsibility for the triple murders in a phone call to journalists in Quetta.