Rocket attack kills two policemen in southwest Pakistan

Quetta: A rocket attack targeting a senior police officer and his family killed two police escorts in restive southwestern Pakistan, officials said Sunday.

The incident happened Saturday evening when district police chief Asghar Ali Yusufzai was travelling with his family from Khuzdar district to the town of Gwadar in Baluchistan province.

"The vehicle carrying Yusufzai and his family came under rocket attack as they passed Pasni town," Baluchistan home secretary Akbar Durrani told AFP.

He said the rocket hit the vehicle escorting Yusufzai, killing two policemen and injuring another, while the senior officer and his family escaped unhurt.

A senior administration official in Gwadar, Hameed Abro, confirmed the incident and casualties.

Nobody has claimed responsibility but the area is one of the most restive parts of the province. Separatists have regularly attacked police and troops along with state infrastructure.

Also on Sunday, an officer from the paramilitary frontier core was killed and two others wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine in a village close to Dera Bugti town, a senior local official said.

The officer died of his wounds on the way to hospital, the official added.

Baluchistan, Pakistan`s largest but least developed and most sparsely populated province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, has been racked for decades by a separatist insurgency that was revived in 2004.

The separatists believe locals do not receive a fair share of the province`s energy and mineral wealth. Rights groups accuse the government of extra-judicial detentions and killing of activists.