QUETTA, Pakistan: Militants lobbed grenades at two small businesses in a southwest Pakistani city on Wednesday, killing at least four and wounding 11 in what police termed ethnically-motivated attacks.
In the first incident, a grenade exploded in a crowded barber's shop in the main market of Quetta, capital of restive Baluchistan province where a separatist insurgency has been waged since 2004.
"Four people riding two motorbikes arrived at the salon on the main double road of the city and lobbed two grenades on the shop," Aitezaz Goraya, a senior police official, told AFP.
"After the grenade attack, they fired shots at the people present at the shop," he said.
Rashid Jamali, a medical officer at a nearby government hospital, said three people died while 10 more were injured.
The second attack targeted a photo studio on Quetta's Sariab Road.
"One person was killed and another got injured in this attack," said Imran Qureshi, a senior police official in the area.
Police said both businesses were probably attacked because they were owned by Punjabis -- Pakistan's biggest ethnic group which has traditionally dominated the army, bureaucracy and political parties.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the strikes but Baluch separatists are active in the area. They often attack government forces, installations and people who have been settled in Baluchistan from Punjab.
Baluch nationalists are seeking to stop what they see as the exploitation of the region's rich natural resources and alleged rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings and kidnappings. (AFP)
