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QUETTA, Jan 25: Six passengers were killed and five others injured when a minibus hit a landmine in Kharcha, near Bekar, on Wednesday morning. The minibus was going from Rakhni in Barkhan district to Bekar in Dera Bugti district when it drove over the landmine. Two women, three children and the driver were killed on the spot.
Those killed were identified as Hura Bibi, Noor Bibi, Ajan Khan (7), Khan Bakhsh (4) and Jamila (3) and Nabi Zad.
DCO: The district coordination officer, Dera Bugti, Abdul Samad Lasi, told Dawn that after the dismantling of the Bekal outlaw camps outlaws had taken shelter in mountains and they had laid the mine on the Bekar Road.
He also alleged armed men of Nawab Akbar Bugti opened fire on a Frontier Corps fort, near the Dera Bugti town, at 5pm. The firing continued for half an hour but no casualty was reported.
About repair work on the water pipelines to the Pirkoh gas plant which were blown up on Tuesday, Mr Lasi said work could not be taken up because of danger of landmines.
Meanwhile, Jamhoori Watan Party spokesman Agha Shahid Hasan Bugti accused paramilitary forces of firing 14 shells on the Dera Bugti town in the afternoon, and said that tribesmen did not retaliate.
About the death of innocent people in the Bekar landmine blast, the spokesman said that the road was under the control of security forces and militiamen themselves had laid these mines in order to put the blame on tribesmen.
ROCKET FIRED: A rocket landed near the Circuit House in Nushki and a bomb exploded near the railway tracks on the Quetta-Taftan section, near Nushki, without causing any damage. Police sources in Nushki told this correspondent that saboteurs had fired the rocket at about 6:30pm.
The sources also confirmed the blast near the railway tracks, but said it caused no damage.
CHECK-POSTS ATTACKED: Official sources said that seven rockets were fired on Frontier Corps checkposts at Fazalchal, Naal and Taramen in the Kahan area of Kohlu district. When security forces retaliated with mortar shells the assailants escaped.
