QUETTA: At least 12 people, including four security personnel, were injured in two bomb blasts that took place in Pishin and Panjgur districts of Balochistan on Sunday.

In both the incidents vehicles of security forces were targeted.

According to a police officer, unidentified people planted an IED (improvised explosive dev­ice) in a motorcycle and parked it outside the office of Naib Tehsildar Abdul Malik Tareen in Pishin. As soon as Mr Tareen reached his office in a Levies vehicle and got out of it the IED was detonated by remote control.

Mr Tareen, three Levies personnel and six passers-by were injured.

All the injured were taken to the district hospital in Pishin. Later, Mr Tareen and the Levies personnel were shifted to the Trauma Centre of the Civil Hospital.

According to hospital sources, the condition of Mr Tareen is serious. However, other injured were said to be in stable condition.

Soon after the blast, security personnel cordoned off the area.

The Levies vehicle and some other vehicles passing through the area at the time of the blast were damaged.

In Panjgur town, two people, including a security man, were injured in a bomb blast near a vehicle of Frontier Corps.

Levies officials said that unidentified people planted an explosive device in a motorcycle and parked it along a road. They detonated it by remote control when the FC vehicle was passing through the area.

Soon after receiving information about the incident, security personnel rushed to the area and shifted the injured to the district hospital in Panjgur.

The officials said that the FC vehicle was the target in the attack.

Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani and home minister Mir Zia Langove condemned the attacks and said elements involved in these incidents would be arrested soon and brought to justice.

They said such cowardly attacks could not deter brave forces of the country from taking action against terrorists.

They said the enemy wanted to disturb law and order situation in Balochistan.

They directed security forces to arrest elements behind Sunday’s bomb blasts in Pishin and Panjgur.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2019