DERA ISMAIL KHAN Three Shia Muslim laborers were killed and one other wounded in a sectarian killing in Dera city on Monday.
Police said three armed assailants went to the site of an under construction building in Sher Sah Suri town in the jurisdiction of Dera Town police station and opened indiscriminate fire on the four laborers.
As a result, three of them were killed on the spot while another suffered wounds. All the victim laborers belonged to Kotla Siadan. The assailants managed to escape after committing the attack.
The police linked the killing with target killings and sectarian attacks in Dera Ismail Khan.
The police reached the spot and cordoned off the area to search the accused.
All markets, business centers and shops were closed as a result. Locals feared an outbreak of sectarian strife in the city as a result of the killings.
The Dera Ismail Khan district, which borders Pakistan's restive tribal region, is a flashpoint for violence between militants from minority Shia and majority Sunni communities.
Shias account for some 20 per cent of Pakistan's mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.
Although the two groups usually coexist peacefully, more than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the late 1980s.
