Senior official among three killed near Quetta

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claims responsibility for the triple murder.

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 fired on their car, police said. 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, medics said. Muhammad Saeed belonged to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa while Yasin was from Hazara community, a local ethnic Shia group. 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.


Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2012.