ISLAMABAD: Two policemen were killed in a gun attack in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on Friday, police said.
Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan in terms of land area, has long been marred by a separatist insurgency and sectarian divides that have claimed hundreds of lives.
Friday's attack occurred near the Eastern Bypass area in the provincial capital of Quetta as the policemen sat for lunch at a hotel, according to the police.
"Assistant Sub-Inspector Rehmatullah, Constable Asghar Ali and Driver Qurban Ali were having lunch when two armed men barged inside the hotel and opened indiscriminate fire on the police team," Noorul Hassan, the in-charge of the local police station, said.
The assailants, who came on a motorbike, fled shortly after the attack. It injured the driver, who was shifted to Civil Hospital.
Dr. Waseem Baig, a spokesman for the hospital, said Qurban sustained gunshot wounds to his shoulder and leg, but he was in a stable condition.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Baloch separatists and other banned militant outfits often target security forces in southwest Pakistan, which shares a long and porous border with Iran and Afghanistan.
The attack came hours after clashes between Afghan and Pakistani security forces killed two people and wounded several in a border region of the two neighbors, officials said, the latest in a series of such skirmishes.
Both forces started exchanging fire in a dispute over setting up a military check post in the southwestern border area that divides Chaman and Spin Boldak districts in the two countries, three security officials told Reuters.
Two civilians were killed and 22 wounded on the Afghan side, a local Taliban spokesman Mohammad Asif Hakimi said. Five Taliban soldiers were also wounded, he said.
Pakistani officials said several wounded included four security officials.
It was difficult to independently verify the claims as the region is off limits to journalists.
Pakistan’s army, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, has stepped up security operations along the Afghan border in recent weeks after a spate of militant attacks.
Militants have killed at least 14 Pakistani soldiers in attacks over the few weeks, three of them carried out by fighters entering from Afghanistan.
The Taliban have denied Afghan territory was used to stage the attacks.