QUETTA- Four Christians were shot dead in southwestern Pakistan on Monday,police said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The incident occurred in a Christian-majority neighbourhood in the city ofQuetta, capital of the Balochistan province, and officials said it appearedto be a targeted attack on the religious minority.

“Three members of a family, including a woman, were killed when the motorrickshaw they were (in)… came under attack,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, thepolice chief of the province, told AFP.

“The rickshaw driver, who was also a Christian by faith, is among the dead.”

A child was injured in the attack and is receiving treatment at a hospital,officials added. Ghulam Ali Baloch, a local official, said her injurieswere not life-threatening.

“Initial investigations suggest the people were ambushed because of theirfaith,” Ansari said.

The Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan — IslamicState-Khorasan Province — claimed responsibility for the attack, the SITEIntelligence Group said.

Islamist militants have in the past attacked Christians and other religiousminorities in Balochistan.

In December last year, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Quettachurch, which was packed with worshippers, killing nine people and woundingover a dozen.

In addition to Islamist extremists, ethnic Baloch militants have beenfighting a low-intensity separatist insurgency in the province for years,often bombing infrastructure like railroads and power lines.

Christians make up less than two percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan’s 200million people, and have long faced discrimination and violence. – Agencies