QUETTA/KARACHI: At least seven people were killed and 17 injured on Friday when a bomb ripped through a rally organized by a religious party to show solidarity with Palestine in Chaman, a border city in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, police and doctors said.
The Pakistan government had announced this week Friday would be observed as Palestine Solidarity Day with rallies held through the country, and religious clerics endorsing the Palestinian cause and condemning “Israeli atrocities” during Friday sermons.
“The bomb fitted to a motorcycle was exploded when the vehicle of Abdul Qadri Loni, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Nazriati faction, reached Murghi Bazaar,” police officer Maqsood Ahmed told Arab News, saying the religious party leader was wounded in the blast. “This was a remote control blast.”
Dr. Akhter Muhammad, medical superintendent at the Civil Hospital, Chaman, said six dead bodies and 18 injured people had been brought to the hospital after the blast.
“Four [patients] in critical condition have been referred to Quetta for treatment,” Dr. Muhammad told Arab News, saying one had passed away en route to Quetta, taking the death toll to seven. “All the injured have received splinter wounds due to intensity of blast while some had been discharged after initial medical care.”
“I was leaving the Palestine Solidarity rally in Chaman when the powerful bang hit my convoy but I escaped unhurt in the attack,” Loni, whose rally was attacked, told Arab News by phone from a secure location. “I had been receiving death threats from armed groups for the past many months and despite multiple requests the government failed in providing us full security.”
No group has so far accepted responsibility for the attack.
Last month, a car bomb blast at a luxury hotel’s parking area in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta killed four people and wounded 11.
Quetta is the capital of the mineral rich Balochistan province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, which has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by local nationalists, who want more of a share in the regional resources.
The province is home to the newly expanded Gwadar deep water port that is key to a planned $65 billion investment in China’s Belt and Road Initiative economic corridor.
