QUETTA: Unidentified armed men opened fire on a police mobile van in Sohbat Pur district of Balochistan on Friday wounding at least six policemen.

A Station House Officer was also travelling in the mobile van which came under indiscriminate fire of the attackers. The SHO was critically wounded.

Earlier during the day, security forces claimed to have foiled a major bid of terrorism as they seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition from Balochistan's Zhob district on Friday.

Frontier Corps personnel, accompanied by intelligence officials, conducted a joint search operation and apprehended two militants from Gwal Ismail Zai area of Zhob district.

A security official requesting anonymity told Dawn.com that security forces also recovered five suicide jackets, 14 rocket launchers, 50 kg explosives and other weapons from the possession of the arrested militants.

“The militants were trying to smuggle the weapons in a bid to carry out terror attacks in Quetta to sabotage independence day celebrations,” he said.

Both the militants belonged to a banned militant outfit and were shifted to an undisclosed location for interrogation, the official concluded.

Also read: 400 militants in Balochistan lay down weapons on Independence Day

Country's largest province — which borders Iran and Afghanistan — is riven by sectarian strife and Islamist violence.

Its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.

Baloch separatists demanding more autonomy and control over gas and mineral resources have frequently targeted security forces and police for years.

— An earlier version of the story incorrectly reported three policemen as dead, the error is regretted