Police in Pakistan say they have shot dead an activist of the hard-line Sunni Muslim organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, at Vehari, west of Multan in Punjab province.

The police said the SSP official, Khursid Ahmad, was a proclaimed terrorist, with a price of twenty-thousand dollars on his head.

They said he and a colleague had opened fire on them when called to stop at a road block.

The SSP said Khursid Ahmad was killed while returning from a mosque after prayers, adding that the Pakistani government would be responsible for what it called dire consequences if it operated a shoot-to-kill policy against the SSP.

More than twenty Shi'ite and Sunni muslims have died in a new upsurge of sectarian violence in Pakistan over the past three days.