QUETTA: At least five Pakistani citizens were killed when Afghan border security personnel opened fire in an area close to the Pak-Afghan border in Balochistan, officials said.

At least three people were also injured in the incident in the wee hours of Wednesday which took place in the Pak-Afghan border area of Qamar Din Karez, around 350 kilometres from Zhob city, the state-run news agency APP quoted official sources as saying.

“The indiscriminate firing opened by Afghan security forces left five tribesmen of 'Loion' tribe living in Qamar Din Karez area of Zhob district located along Pak-Afghan border,” official sources said, adding that the injured included a Levies Force personnel.

A district administration officer said that the cause behind the firing could not be ascertained, however claiming that the Afghan security forces personnel opened fire without any provocation.

Taj Mohammed, a deputy commissioner in Zhob, told news agency AP that the men had crossed the porous border to get fodder for their cattle when Afghan security forces killed them.

There were conflicting claims, however, about whether the men were militants or Pakistani cattle farmers.

AP reported the police chief for Afghanistan’s Paktika province, Daulat Khan Zadran, as saying that the men were Taliban militants killed in a confrontation with Afghan security forces. Zadran said the bodies of three of the slain men were still in Afghanistan.

Neither the Pakistani nor Afghan foreign ministries have so far issued any statement regarding the incident.