QUETTA: At least four people were killed during an exchange of fire between two groups of drug-smugglers in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan on Wednesday, whereas a body each was recovered from Quetta and Killa Saifullah.

The four were killed when two groups of narcotics smugglers exchanged fire in Quetta's Qambrani road area.

Superintendent of Police Sariab Police Station Imran Qureshi told Dawn that the exchange of fire took place over a narcotics transaction dispute.

He said initially three people were killed whereas the fourth one succumbed to injuries while receiving treatment at a nearby hospital.

Police and Frontier Corps personnel reached the spot and cordoned off the area as a probe into the incident went under way.

The bodies were shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta for postmortem.

Balochistan is regarded as a transit route for drug smugglers who use frequented and unfrequented passageways in the province to smuggle narcotics to Gulf states and Iran which are then transported to underground markets in Europe.

The province borders Afghanistan's volatile region of Helmand, which tops opium production world over.

Separately, security forces recovered a body in Balochistan's Killa Saifullah district on Wednesday morning.

A security official told Dawn that the body was rigged with explosives.

Forces cordoned off the area and a bomb disposal squad was called from Quetta to defuse the explosive materials.

Police also found a mutilated body near Saddar Police Station in Quetta and the body was shifted to Civil Hospital in the provincial capital for identification and autopsy.

150 suspected militants arrested in Quetta

In a continued crackdown against militants operating in Balochistan, police detained 150 suspects in different parts of Quetta and also recovered weapons and ammunition from their possession.

A police spokesperson said that the raids were conducted in Hazar Ganji, Sariab and other areas of Quetta.

The suspects were shifted to different police stations for interrogation.

Since the Peshawar school attack last month, security forces have launched a crackdown after receiving approval from the federal government and have been conducting raids in different parts of Balochistan.