Militants shot dead seven people on Saturday in two separate incidents of sectarian violence in Pakistan\’s troubled southwestern city of Quetta.

Militants shot dead seven people on Saturday in two separate incidents of sectarian violence in Pakistan's troubled southwestern city of Quetta.

"Two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on a taxi cab killing five Shiite Muslims and wounding another person," local police official Ameer Muhammad Dasti told AFP.

He said in the second incident, two gunmen standing on a roadside shot dead two people, who passed by them on a motorbike.

A senior local police official Malik Arshad also confirmed the incidents and casualties and said "the killings were part of sectarian violence in the city."

The drive-by shootings took place in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province bordering with Iran and Afghanistan.