Islamabad: Pakistani police killed the head of the banned sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi on Wednesday as he attempted to escape as he was being moved between prisons, police said.

Malik Ishaq was on a US list of global terrorists and the group he founded has claimed responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, most of them minority Shi`ite Muslims.

Two high-ranking police officers told Reuters Ishaq and his two sons were being moved between detention centres when a group of armed men attacked the convoy and freed them.

Ishaq and his two sons were killed in subsequent police firing, said the officers, both of whom declined to be identified.