09 November 2024 , 19:12
618
0
Police say army personnel targeted in possible suicide bombing in country’s south-west and many of more than 40 injured in critical condition
At least 24 people have been killed and more than 40 injured in a bomb blast at a railway station in Quetta in south-western Pakistan, police and other officials have said.
The target was “army personnel from the Infantry School”, said the inspector general of police for Balochistan, Mouzzam Jah Ansari.
Many of the injured were in critical condition, he said. Twenty-four people had died in Saturday’s blast so far.
Pakistan is grappling with a surge in strikes by separatist ethnic militants in the south and Islamist militants in its north-west.
“So far 44 injured people have been brought to civil hospital,” Dr Wasim Baig, a hospital spokesman, told Reuters.
An injured victim of the Quetta blast is taken to hospital. Photograph: Sami Khan/EPA
The blast appeared to have been a suicide bomb, said the senior superintendent of police operations, Muhammad Baloch. Investigations were under way for more information, he said.
“The blast took place inside the railway station when the Peshawar-bound express was about to leave for its destination,” Baloch said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast at Quetta’s main railway station, which is usually busy early in the day.
In August, at least 73 people were killed in Balochistan province after separatist militants attacked police stations, railway lines and highways.
The assaults in August were the most widespread in years by militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich south-western province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine.