PESHAWAR (AFP) - Gunmen shot dead a Shia official in suspected sectarian violence in Dera Ismael Khan Wednesday, triggering a protest by the community, police said. Syed Arif Hussain Shah, 58, was gunned down when he left for his office in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, local police officer Abdul Ghaffar Qaisarani said. "The attackers fled on a waiting motorbike after leaving Shah in a pool of blood," another officer Salahuddin Khan said adding that the "attack could be linked to the sectarian violence." The murder sparked a protest in the city with angry Shia youths firing shots in the air after taking to the streets, police said adding that two people were wounded. Shah, who was head of the local government's accounts department, was the sixth member of his family to have been killed over the past three months, residents said.