QUETTA, July 27: Armed men gunned down Raziq Bugti, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, here on Friday. He was 54. He died at the scene of the attack, as he had received multiple bullet injuries.

Police said Mr Bugti was on way to his office after participating in a live programme at the PTV Quetta Centre about floods in Balochistan.

When he reached near the gate of the Grammar School, after crossing the Assembly and High Court buildings, unknown armed men riding in a car opened fire into his vehicle, which he was driving, with a Kalashnikov rifle at the Zarghoon Road. The assailants fled the scene.

Soon after the attack DIG (operations) Rehmatullah Niazi, along with a police force, rushed to the site and sent Bugti’s body to the civil hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

“Mr Bugti died on the spot as he received a volley of bullets on the upper part of his body from a close range,” hospital sources said.

“The armed men first fired a full burst of the AK-47 rifle on the driver’s side of the vehicle where Raziq Bugti was sitting and later they fired more shots at the vehicle,” police said quoting eyewitnesses. They said Mr Bugti was alone in the car when he was ambushed.

Balochistan Inspector General of Police Tariq Masood termed it a target killing and said the police had got some important clues about the attack.

Responding to a reporter’s question, the IGP said that despite having received threats from the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Bugti militants, the late media adviser to the chief minister never asked for guards.