QUETTA: Two civilians were killed while seven others injured after a magnetic improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in Balochistan’s Khuzdar district on Tuesday, said a senior police official.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack which targeted ordinary people in the restive southwestern province that shares a porous border with Iran and Afghanistan.
“Some unidentified individuals attached a magnetic IED to a private vehicle which exploded in Khuzdar city,” Fahad Khan Khoso, senior superintendent of police deployed in the area, told Arab News. “Two civilians were killed and seven injured in the attack.”
He described the incident as a “targeted attack,” adding the police had increased security in the area to hunt down militants behind the blast.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province in terms of landmass and has witnessed separatist and sectarian violence which has claimed hundreds of lives in the last two decades.
Several armed groups in the region have carried out similar attacks against politicians and tribal elders in the past. Last month, two police officials were killed after a magnetic bomb attached to their car blew up in the same district.
“The government will prevent the conspiracy of terrorists who want to disturb Balochistan's peace and stability,” Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo said in a statement.
He asked the authorities to take effective security measures against militant factions operating in Khuzdar while pointing out that the nation would have to unit and collectively fight the menace of militancy.
Tuesday’s attack was the second blast in the province within a span of a few days. Two private guards of a local tribesman, Sardar Khan Rind, were killed in a targeted IED attack in Kachi district on March 12.
The medical superintendent of the District Headquarters Hospital, Dr. Saeed Ahmed, said an injured person had been referred to Karachi since he had received critical wounds.
“Six people had minor injuries while one was brought here in serious condition with major wounds to one of his arms,” he told Arab News. “We shifted him to Karachi since there was no surgeon here who could provide him the required medical treatment.”
