QUETTA: Six Frontier Corps personnel were injured in a bomb blast in the western bypass area here on Monday.

The banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to officials, some militants planted an explosive device on a road linking the FC firing range area with the western bypass. The bomb went off when a vehicle carrying the FC soldiers was passing through the area.

“Six soldiers were injured in the blast,” FC officials said, adding that soon after the blast security forces rushed to the area and shifted the injured to the Bolan Medical College Hospital. Two of the seriously injured soldiers were later shifted to the Combined Military Hospital.

The FC vehicle was badly damaged in the blast.

Quetta police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the bomb weighing about 10kg was detonated by remote control.

Sources said the explosive device was planted near an FC picket. However, no security man was there when the blast took place.

The injured were identified as Hawaldar Awal Rehman, Naik Abdul Latif, Sepoys Qasim Iqbal, Saifur Ragman and Shahzed and Naib Subidar Mohammad Shafi.

Talking to the local media on phone from an unspecified place, a spokesman for the BLA claimed that three FC personnel were killed in the bomb blast.

But the FC officials rejected the claim, saying no soldier died in the attack.

Security forces cordoned off the entire area and launched a search operation in which some suspects were taken into custody for interrogation.

Balochistan Chief Mini­ster Nawab Sanaullah Zehri condemned the bomb attack on the FC personnel and directed the officials concerned to arrest the people involved in it.

He said the government was determined to eliminate terrorism from the country and would not compromise on it.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2017