QUETTA: At least nine
people were executed and 35 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near
a military group near the district courts on Jinnah Road here on Saturday,
police and hospital officials said.
Pakistani Taliban
spokesman Muhammad Khusrani told Reuters that the group, also known as the TTP,
was responsible for the attack.
“The suicide bomber was
riding a bicycle close to a Frontier Corps vehicle,” said senior police
official Imtiaz Shah.
At least three Frontier
Corps (FC) workers were killed and 15 were injured in the attack that occurred
in the city centre in the late afternoon, FC spokesman Khan Wasey said.
A 12-year-old girl was
also among the dead, said Ajab Khan, a doctor at the city’s Civil Hospital,
where the casualties were taken.
The condition of five
injured persons is critical.
The blast partially
damaged the security forces’ vehicle and shattered the window panes of nearby
buildings.
TV footages showed
several wounded FC personnel being shifted from the scene.
Rescue and emergency
teams reached the blast site. An emergency was declared in all nearby hospitals
while the wounded had been shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta.
Rescue teams and law
enforcement agencies reached the scene and cordoned off the area.
Initial investigations
suggest that 10 to 15 kilograms of explosives were used in the bomb. Several
motorcycles and cars were completely destroyed in the attack.
The dead and injured were
shifted to Civil Hospital and Bolan Medical Complex.
In the intervening time,
President Mamnoon Hussain Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Interior
Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Balochistan governor and chief minister
strongly condemned the Quetta blast.
The prime minister
directed to provide best treatment facilities to the injured.
The prime minister also
directed the officials of the law enforcement agencies to hunt down the
culprits responsible for this terror attack.
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