QUETTA: In yet another incident of targeted killing, armed militants killed two people in Quetta's troubled Sariab road area on Tuesday, police said.

Armed motorcyclists opened fire at a barber shop, killing two people. A child outside the barber shop also sustained serious bullet wounds and was rushed to Civil Hospital Quetta for medical treatment.

Imran Qureshi, the Superintendent of Police told Dawn.com that the victims belonged to Punjab and were working on Sariab road for a long time.

“The assailants sped away on their motorcycle after the strike,” he said.

Residents of the area blocked Sariab road to mourn the killing. Traffic in the area was suspended for more than an hour as the angry protesters chanted full-throated slogans against the administration for its failure to protect the lives of citizens.

Police and a huge contingent of Frontier Corps (FC) reached the spot and cordoned off the area to probe into the incident.

“This was an act of targeted killing,” the SP said.

The dead bodies were shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta for postmortem. The incident has come two days after the militants in the same area gunned down two Shia Hazaras.

Quetta and other troubled parts of Balochistan have seen a sharp rise in acts of violence. The volatile province has been under the grip of an insurgency and growing sectarianism for last more than a decade.