Karachi: One person was killed and at least 20 injured in a bomb blast at a shop in a busy market in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Friday. Police gave this information. The incident took place at a sweet shop in a congested area of Kohlu district of Balochistan.
Asghar Marri, superintendent of Kohlu District Headquarters Hospital, said 21 people were brought to the hospital after the blast. He said one of the injured had died and the condition of 10 others was critical.
“Those who are in critical condition have been admitted to the Dera Ghazi city hospital,” he said. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, although separatists and terrorists have been blamed for the earlier attacks.
According to Mir Zia Langowe, Advisor to the Chief Minister of Balochistan, a preliminary police investigation has revealed that it was a remote-controlled blast. “The Bomb Disposal Squad is at the spot and they will clarify more details about the blast soon,” he said.
The repression of the broader Baloch nationalist movement is believed to have fuelled the armed separatist insurgency in the province.
“The Pakistani military has so far proven unable to eliminate militant organizations and the larger nationalist movement, despite conducting targeted assassination campaigns and kidnappings and making various attempts to discredit the nationalist movement by associating it with organized crime or terrorist groups…They were struggling for more autonomy within the federal constitutional framework and for the government to respect the socioeconomic rights of the Baloch. It was the state’s repressive response that radicalized most elements of the ‘nationalist’ movement,” noted a paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
