An Iranian policeman and his wife were shot dead on Sunday by unknown gunmen in Balochistan province, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Iranian media.
Governor of Saravan Saeed Tajlili told Tasnim News Agency that Lieutenant Colonel Ali-Reza Shahraki had been assassinated inside his car at a crossroad in Saravan.
State-owned IRNA agency announced that Shahraki's wife was seriously injured in the attack and later succumbed to her injuries.
The governor asserted that an investigation was launched to identify the perpetrators.
The attacks, whose motives remain unclear, have recently increased in the country.
Balochistan is a Sunni-majority province in southeastern Iran and has been one of the hotbeds of tension over the past months in the wave of protests that began last fall after the death of a Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.
The most significant number of deaths during the protests occurred in Balochistan. Residents have complained for years of persecution and deprivation for ethnic and sectarian reasons.
According to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights organization, 134 demonstrators have been killed in various cities of Balochistan province, and at least 21 protesters are at risk of execution.
Balochistan is still one of the volatile areas in Iran, although the authorities have managed to quell the protests to a large extent.
Friday prayers and the sermons of the most prominent Sunni cleric, Abdul Hamid Ismaeelzehi, became the focus of protests.
Ismaeelzehi insists in his speeches to hold those responsible for the shooting accountable, especially on "Bloody Friday," when about 90 demonstrators were killed in Zahedan city.
Local news site Haalvsh reported that the security services arrested Sunni cleric Abdul Aziz Omarzahi, a professor at Dar al-Uloom in the Makki Mosque in Zahedan.
The Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), stated that Omarzahi was an influential figure in the riots.
Meanwhile, local sources reported that at least six people were executed in Zahedan prisons on charges of retribution and drug trafficking.
Last year, the province recorded 174 executions of Baloch nationals, equivalent to 30 percent of Iran's total, according to Iran Human Rights.
The organization indicated in its annual statistics that 121 people were executed in the province on charges of drug trafficking, and 52 people faced retribution sentences, including three women.
