QUETTA A Shia Muslim scholar and his police guard were killed in an apparent sectarian attack when gunmen fired at his car in Pakistans southwestern Baluchistan province, police said on Saturday.

Two men riding on a motorcycle opened fire at Allama Hassan Zakris car on Friday as he was returning home from leading the weekly prayer in the nearby town of Mach.

'The gunmen indiscriminately opened fire, killing the scholar and his police guard on the spot. It seems like a sectarian attack, as he was a known Shia scholar and was returning home after leading the Friday prayer at a mosque,' senior police official Qazi Abdul Wahab told AFP.

Zakri regularly led prayers on Friday in the town some 65 kilometres southeast of Quetta.

Hundreds of Shia Muslims paraded through the streets of Quetta on Saturday to a protest sit-in at the provincial governors house, carrying the bodies of the slain scholar and his guard and calling on authorities to arrest the killers.