Blast in Pakistani’s Balochistan province kills 17, injures 30 others

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Blast in Pakistani’s Balochistan province kills 17, injures 30 others

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Seventeen people have been killed and not less than 30 others injured on Friday when a “huge” explosion rocked Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province, seemingly aimed at a top senator’s convoy.The blast occurred in Mastung district, about an hour away from east of provincial capital Quetta, hit a vehicle conveying the deputy chairman of Pakistan’s upper house Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri.“I am alive, Allah has saved my life, it was a sudden blast, broken pieces of the windscreen hit me, I am injured but safe. The driver and other people sitting next to me were badly injured,” Haideri recounted on private TV channel SAMAA.The gory sight had survivors picking up body parts littering the road and found around vehicle.Security officials and a bomb disposal squad were called in from a nearby madrassa where the convoy was going to attend a graduation ceremony.National flags of countries like Pakistani, Afghan, Chinese and Bangladeshi, were hoisted depicting the nationalities of students at the seminary ahead of the ceremony.“The death toll has reached 17 and more than 30 people have been injured,” Dr Daad Muhammad, a hospital administrator confirmed.As at press time, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.“It is not yet clear whether it was a planted bomb or a suicide attack,” a police official Safar Khan said.Haideri is known as a top official of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), a prominent member of Pakistan’s religious political parties.JUI-F has been the target of Pakistani Taliban in the recent times in spite of the intervention role being played by it to help resolve the disagreement between the militants and Pakistan government on some occasions.A long battle has been on involving Pakistan, the Islamist and nationalist insurgencies in mineral-rich Balochistan since 2004, with attendant casualties on all sides.Balochsitan is the largest of all four provinces in Pakistan and it borders Iran and Afghanistan and its approximate seven million residents have repeatedly said they do not get a fair share of its mineral resources.Meanwhile the peace efforts by the Pakistani government has reduced conflict considerably in the region in past years.Peace efforts include a work on a huge Chinese infrastructure project, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, allowing Beijing navigate the Arabian sea via Balochistan’s deep sea port at Gwadar.

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