Car bomb in southwest Pakistan kills at least 11, wounds 20
Pakistani police officers examine the site of an explosion in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, June 23, 2017. A powerful bomb went off near the office of the provincial police chief in southwest Pakistan on Friday, causing casualties, police said. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
QUETTA, Pakistan—A powerful car bomb ripped through the area near the office of the provincial police chief in southwestern Pakistan on Friday killing eleven people and wounding 20, officials said.
The explosion near the police chief’s office in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, was powerful enough that it was heard across the city, shattering windows of nearby buildings, said police spokesman Shahzada Farhat.
Wasim Beg, a spokesman at a government hospital, said the death toll from the bombing had risen to eleven across the morning. He said some people remained in critical condition.
TV footage displayed several badly bruised cars and a road littered with violated glass.
Anwarul Haq Kakar, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the bomb was planted in a moving car, but officers were attempting to determine whether it was a suicide attack.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Kakar blamed neighboring India for the blast. He suggested no evidence.
Pakistan and India routinely trade charges of interference and inciting attacks on one another’s soil.
On Thursday, Pakistan said that an Indian naval officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and sabotage, had petitioned for grace.
Jadhav, who Pakistan said had crossed into Baluchistan from neighboring Iran, was arrested in March two thousand sixteen and sentenced to death in April.
In Fresh Delhi, the Ministry of Outer Affairs insisted Jadhav was sentenced on “concocted charges” and voiced doubts about the existence of the petition for grace. It also reiterated that the proceedings against Jadhav have been shrouded “in opacity.”
Baluchistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists and separatists, who want a thicker share of the regional resources or outright independence, but also attacks blamed on the Pakistani Taliban and others. Those militant groups include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is considered a close ally of IS, as well as Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which has taken credit for several attacks in Baluchistan and has its bases in Pakistan’s tribal regions. JPV
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