QUETTA: At least 10 people were killed and many others injured on Friday in an attack that targetted a mosque the Eidul Fitr prayers near Quetta’s eastern bypass, DawnNews reported.
The shooting came a day after a suicide bomber targeted a police funeral and killed 38 people, mostly police officers, in the same city.
“Four gunmen opened fire when people were coming out of the mosque after saying Eid prayers,” senior local police official Bashir Ahmad Brohi told AFP.
Brohi said a former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) provincial minister, Ali Madad Jattak, was also in the mosque and could have been the target.
“But we are not sure at the moment and are investigating, “he said, adding that Jattak escaped unhurt although bullets hit his car.
Another local police official, Sultan Ahmad, confirmed the incident and casualties outside the mosque, which is also a preaching and research centre.
Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the shooting. Most recent attacks in Quetta, the capital of oil- and gas-rich Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan and Iran, have been linked to a Baloch separatist insurgency or sectarian violence.
On Tuesday Baloch separatists shot dead 14 people including three security officials, 70 kilometres southeast of Quetta.