QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 14, 2015 (AFP) - A top high court judge in southwest Pakistan survived a bomb attack on his convoy Saturday, officials said.
The incident happened in Naushki district of southwestern Baluchistan province as the chief justice of the Baluchistan high court Noor Muhammad Muskanzai was travelling back to provincial capital Quetta from his home town in Kharan district.
“An improvised explosive device planted underneath a bridge in Naushki exploded after chief justice’s convoy crossed it,” provincial home secretary Akbar Durrani told AFP.
He said the chief justice escaped unhurt, but one of the paramilitary Frontier Corps vehicles that was escorting his car was slightly damaged.
The top local administration official Qambar Dashti also confirmed the incident.
Nobody has claimed responsibility from the attack but the area where is occurred is one of the most unstable parts of the violence-torn province.
Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest but least developed and most sparsely populated province and has been racked for decades by a separatist insurgency that was revived in 2004.
The separatists believe locals do not receive a fair share of the province’s energy and mineral wealth, which is diverted to the rest of the country. Rights groups regularly accuse the government of extra-judicial detentions and killing of activists.
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