ICC Note: Four Christians in Quetta, a city located in southwestern Pakistan, were killed by ISIS militants over the Easter holiday. According to reports, the militants targeted the Christians as they traveled from a relative’s house by rickshaw. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack saying that a “covert unit” of its militants “managed to target a number of the combatant Christians.”
04/04/2018 Pakistan (CBN) – ISIS has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Christian family in Pakistan.
It happened Easter morning in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, near the Afghanistan border.
Three men and a woman, all members of the same family, were riding in a rickshaw traveling through Balochistan’s capital city Quetta when armed men on motorcycles opened fire.
“Four people have been killed, they were all Christians,” Ali Mardan, a senior police official, told Al Jazeera. “They were shot dead.”
The victims, who were visiting relatives for Easter, happened to be in a Christian suburb of the capital when the attack occurred.
“Our brothers and sisters were visiting their brother in-law’s house for Easter,” said Khalil Jorge Bhutto, a Pakistani lawmaker. “An hour later, they were martyred by the attackers.”
A 12-year-old girl was also injured in the attack.
“(The) initial investigations suggest the people were ambushed because of their faith,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, the police chief of the province, told AFP.
“Enough is enough,” exclaimed Bhutto. “Now is the time we all should stand up against these terrorists and killers.”
ISIS in Pakistan claimed responsibility saying that a “covert unit” of its militants “managed to target a number of the combatant Christians.”.
In December, a suicide bomb and gun attack on a church in Quetta killed nine people.
ISIS said in a statement that its militants shot the Christians “with a pistol, which resulted in the killing of four of them, and all praise is due to Allah.”
Roughly 2 percent of Pakistan’s population is Christian, and they are often targets of numerous Islamic attacks.
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