QUETTA: Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shia Muslim judge along with his driver and police bodyguard in Quetta on Thursday in a suspected sectarian attack, police said.

The incident took place when the session judge Zulfiqar Naqvi was travelling to his office.

“Gunmen were waiting for him at a railway crossing, the moment the car slowed down, the assailants sprayed bullets and fled,” senior police officer Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

“The target of the attack was the judge and it appeared to be a sectarian incident.” Khalid Mazoor, another senior police officer, confirmed the killings and added the gunmen were riding a motorbike.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but Balochistan has been a flashpoint for violence between majority Sunnis and Shias, who make up around 20 percent of the population.

Sectarian conflict has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s, and the province also suffers Taliban attacks and a separatist insurgency.