QUETTA: Five persons, including one police personnel and two children, were injured in bomb blast which took place near Meezan Chowk on Thursday evening.

A grenade was also reported at the same site in Brewery road area.

Police said that unknown people planted explosive with time device in a motorcycle and parked it in front of Fire Brigade Station close to a hotel that went off when hundreds of people were passing through the area.

Police said that five persons, including a policeman and two children who were passing through the area, got injured. Soon after the blast personnel of Frontier Corps and police rushed to the site and shifted the injured to civil hospital.

“The condition of all injured is stable,” hospital sources said. They were identified as police constable Zahoor Ahmed, Muhammad Hanif, Muhammad Saleem, Sardar Muhammad Nazi (14) and Bashir Ahmed (5).

Police was of the view that explosive device planted in a motorcycle was detonated with a remote. “Around one kilo of explosive was used in the blast,” bomb disposal squad officials said. Further investigation was underway.

A car, two motorcycles and an auto rickshaw were destroyed in the blast that also ripped apart windowpanes of nearby buildings.

Meanwhile, unknown armed men hurled a hand grenade at the house of a government officer in Wahdat Colony at Brewery road area.

“Police said that unknown people lobbed the grenade in the house of one Muhammad Akbar, a government employee in civil secretariat. It exploded in the courtyard of the house causing no casualty. However, it smashed the windowpanes of the house and other nearby buildings.

Later in the evening, the banned United Baloch Army claimed responsibility of the Meezan Chowk bomb attack.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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