Gunmen in die port city of Karachi shot dead a minister from Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwestern province of Baluchistan on Thursday, police said.

Sardar Rustam Jamali, the provincial minister for excise and taxation, who was in Karachi on a private visit, was travelling in his car when gunmen opened fire and injured him seriously, local police official Qayyum Pitafi told AFP

" He was rushed to hospital where he died of his injuries," the official said, adding that police were investigating whether it was a targeted killing.

Jamali, 46, a cousin of former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali, was elected in 2008 as an independent candidate and later joined the provincial coalition led by President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan People's Party.

Gas-rich Baluchistan has been in the grip of a two-year insurgency launched by ethnic Baluch rebels who want more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

Meanwhile, local vigilantes allied to Pakistani soldiers on Thursday claimed to have killed at least 167 militants in two months, an indication of the growing reach of private armies in the northwest.’ •