QUETTA, Dec 10: Eleven people, including two army personnel, were killed and 26 others injured when a powerful bomb attached to a bicycle exploded on the Mezeen Chowk here on Friday.
Over a dozen vehicles, including a military truck, were destroyed and several shops damaged in the blast.
"Six persons were killed on the spot while five others succumbed to injuries in hospital," sources in the civil hospital said, adding that the condition of five victims, who had suffered multiple injuries, was serious.
Inter-Service Public Relations sources confirmed the death of one army soldier. Four other army personnel were wounded in the blast and admitted to the CMH Quetta, the ISPR sources said. The injured included a policeman and sepoy of the Frontier Corps.
Talking to Dawn, Quetta DIG Rafi Pervez Bhatti said the explosive device had been attached to a bicycle with a timer. The bicycle was parked near an army truck standing close to Baldia Plaza, he said.
Experts said the miscreants had used a 4kg locally-made bomb. Sources said that hundreds of people were busy shopping in the Baldia Plaza and other shops on the Mezeen Chowk when the explosion occurred at around 4.07pm.
Shrapnels of the bomb and the bicycle hit people. The blast was so powerful that human limbs were splattered all around in a 500 sq-meter area. A shop close to the explosion site caught fire.
The sources said that pieces of the bicycle hit the army personnel on the truck, killing one soldier and injuring four others. The truck was destroyed and seven other vehicles were damaged. According to the DIG, the other armyman succumbed to injuries later.
Soon after the incident, personnel of law-enforcement agencies cordoned off the area and took bodies and the injured to the civil hospital. Hundreds of people gathered at the hospital where a state of emergency was declared by the provincial government.
"My bother was shopping in Baldia Plaza when the explosion occurred. He was killed," Abdul Majeed, a Larkana-based shopkeeper, told this correspondent at the hospital. "I was inside a blanket shop when the blast occurred. I fell as something hit me," said Mohammad Qasim, one of the injured.
Sources said some witnesses had informed police that a person had left the bicycle near the military truck about five minutes before the explosion. "It is an act of terrorism," the DIG said, adding that teams comprising senior officers of the police department and other law-enforcement agencies had been set up and investigation was under way.
"Elements involved in the blast are the same people who had carried out such acts earlier," DIG Bhatti said. Meanwhile, an unknown caller identifying himself as Azad Baloch informed journalists in the Quetta Press Club that 'the Baloch Liberation Army' was responsible for the blast.
Balochistan Health Minister Hafiz Hamdullah and district nazim Quetta Mohammad Rahim Kakar visited the hospital. The nazim announced compensation for the victims. Accordingly, Rs100,000 each will be given to the families of the dead, Rs50,000 each for the seriously wounded and Rs25,000 each for slightly injured victims.
The hospital sources identified the dead as Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Essa, Nasruddin, Wali Gul, Mumtaz Samalani, Hidayatullah, Ghulam Ali, Faizullah, and Jamaluddin. The names of army personnel could not be known.
The injured were identified as Salah Mohammad, Allah Noor, Habibullah, Mohammad Saleem, Mohammad Qasim, Asif, Ghulam Sakhi, Abdul Ghaffar, Akram, Qasir, Mohammad Hassan, Nazar Hussain, Abdul Ghais, Naqibullah, Ashiq, Behram, Sardar Mohammad, Prem Kumar, Kanwar Lal, Shafiq Massih, Nasir Ali, Mohammad Sharif, Gohar Ali, Murad Ali, Nazia and Abdul Rehman.
