QUETTA: Four members of the Shia Hazara community, among them a 12-year-old boy, were killed and two others injured in an attack in Kuchlak, a town some 30km northwest of here, on Sunday.

Official sources said that eight members of a Hazara family were travelling to Quetta from Chaman in a vehicle. They had stopped near a petrol pump to take a brief rest when two men on a motorcycle appeared and opened fire on them.

They said that three of the six people hit died while the 12-yearold succumbed to injuries during treatment at the trauma centre ofQuetta`s Civil Hospital.

Two women members of the family sitting in the vehicle escaped unhurt.

Kuchlak DSP Tanvir Shah told Dawn that automatic weapons had been used in the attack.

After receiving information about the incident, police and Levies personnel rushed to the area and shifted the bodies and the injured to the hospital.

Sources in the hospital told Dawn that all the victims received multiple bullet wounds in upper parts of their bodies.

They said the two injured were in serious condition and shifted to the Combined Military Hospitalin Quetta.According to a police of ficer, the Hazara family had come to Chaman from Afghanistan in the afternoon.

He identified three of the deceased as Mohammad Mehdi, Yazdan Khan and Ghulam Hussain. The boy`s name could not be ascertained.

The injured were identified as Mohammad Ismail and Abdul Wakil.

After the incident, security forces launched a search operation in Kuchlak and adjacent areas to arrest those involved in the attack.

However, no arrest was reported till late night.

The Levies force has begun investigation into the incident.