Blasts kill one, injure 11 in Balochistan

ISLAMABAD: Back-to-back blasts on Saturday killed one and injured 11 others, including a senior politician, in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, officials said.

In first attack, an explosives-packed motorcycle detonated at a taxi stand in the Sibi district of Balochistan, killing one person and injuring nine others.

“Unknown people parked the explosive-laden motorcycle at a taxi stand in Bakhtiarabad town on (the) main Sibi-Jacobabad national highway,” Mohammad Akhtar, a local administration official, told reporters.

In the second attack, in the Balochistan provincial capital of Quetta, Abdul Majid Abro, an advisor to the Chief Minister of the province, received minor injuries along with one of his colleagues.

A bomb disposal squad official told reporters that four kilogrammes of explosives were used in that blast, detonated by remote control.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Oil- and gas-rich Balochistan has been badly hit by sectarian violence, mainly targeting Shiite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic community.

Baloch rebels have also been fighting since 2004 for political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural oil, gas and mineral resources. In the past week, at least two people were killed and scores were injured after a suicide bomber detonated a carload of explosives as a passenger bus drove past at Akhtarabad bypass on Qamberani Road in the provincial capital of Balochistan, a local new chanel reported.

Agencies