QUETTA: Malik Naveed Dehwar, a main leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), and three others were killed in two gun attacks here on Thursday.

Police said that Mr Dehwar was passing through Arbab Karam Khan road along with his guard and another person when his car came under attack. They said four men on two motorcycles opened fire on the vehicle from two sides.

Mr Dehwar and the gunman, identified as Muhammad Zareef, received multiple bullet wounds and died on the spot.

The third man, identified as Wadera Abdul Samad, was seriously injured.

The police said the attackers used automatic weapons.

Personnel of the police and Frontier Corps shifted the bodies and the injured to the civil hospital.

Quoting sources in the hospital, the police said that Mr Dehwar received seven bullets in upper part of his body.

In his 30s, Mr Dehwar hailed from Mastung. He was a member of the BNP-M’s central council. In 2013, he contested the election from the National Assembly’s Mastung-Kalat constituency on a BNP-M ticket, but lost.

A police officer said it could be a case of targeted killing.

He said the police were investigating the incident from different angles.

The bodies were handed over to heirs after medico-legal formalities.

In the other incident, two men were gunned down in the Chashma Auchuzai area on the outskirts of Quetta.

Amil Khan Kakar, son of prominent Pashtu poet, writer and educationist Wali Muhammad Siyal, was sitting in his farm with his watchman when armed men appeared and attacked them.

Both Mr Kakar and the watchman, whose name could not be ascertained, died on the spot.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2017