QUETTA: Police on Wednesday found decapitated bodies of two Shia Muslims on the outskirts of Quetta, officials said.

The two men, including a prayer leader of a Shia mosque, were recently kidnapped from the Satellite Town area of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas rich Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.

“Police found beheaded bodies of the two Shia Muslims,” senior local police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

He put the beheadings down to sectarian violence, but could not say who was behind it. Another local police official Sikandar Tareen confirmed the killings.

Baluchistan remains one of the most deprived areas of Pakistan where Baloch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the oil, gas and mineral resources in the region.

The province has also been a flashpoint for violence between Sunnis and Shias, who account for around 20 per cent of the population, that has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s.