QUETTA: Gunmen shot dead three Shia Muslims and wounded three others on Saturday in a fresh sectarian attack in Quetta, police said.

“Six persons from the Shia Hazara community were passing from the Jinnah road in a taxicab when they were targeted by two gunmen waiting for them at a traffic signal,” Anwar Ali, a senior police official, told AFP.

“Two persons were killed at the spot while one succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. The gunmen fled the crime scene on a motorcycle,” he said.

Another local police official who reached the crime scene soon after the incident confirmed the toll.

Balochistan is rife with religious militancy, sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and minority Shia Muslims and a regional insurgency waged by separatists.

On Tuesday gunmen shot dead three Shia Muslims from the Hazara community in a similar attack in Quetta which also left two others wounded.

Violence has surged in the province this year and human rights activists have raised concerns about an increase in targeted killings.

In September the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said more than 100 Shias had been killed in sectarian attacks in Balochistan this year.