QUETTA: At least 10 people were injured, one of them critically, in a bomb explosion in Chaman on Sunday.

An improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated by a timer and the powerful blast rocked the border town, spreading panic among people.

The IED had been placed under a car parked in front of a bakery on the busy Taj Road. Most of the injured were passers-by and shopkeepers.

Personnel of the Frontier Corps and police cordoned off the area and took the injured to the district hospital.

“The condition of a 10-year-old boy is critical,” Qila Abdullah district police chief Asad Khan Nasar told Dawn. The boy, identified as Zabihullah, was passing through the area along with his father when the explosion occurred.

“A big piece of glass from a building hit the boy in the head,” the police official said.

Zabihullah was shifted to Quetta after his condition stabilised.

Several vehicles and motorcycles were destroyed and windowpanes of nearby shops and buildings shattered.

On Saturday, police defused a bomb, apparently placed to blow up the Old Customs House building in town.

Some suspects were taken into custody for interrogation after the incident.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2015

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