Deadly bombing: Police officers and people gathering at the site amid the debris after a bomb blast at a railway station in Quetta. — Reuters
A bombing claimed by Pakistani separatists killed 26 people including 14 soldiers at a railway station in the southwestern Balochistan province, police said.
The blast hit as passengers waited on a platform at the main railway station in the provincial capital Quetta.
“Fourteen members of the army and 12 civilians were killed,” said Wasim Baig, spokesman for Quetta’s Sandeman Provincial Hospital, raising an earlier toll of 25 provided by police.
An AFP journalist saw pools of blood and ripped backpacks at the scene, where a large metal sheet protecting passengers from the elements had been blown off.
A spokesperson for a local hospital said dozens of people wounded in the blast had been brought to the facility, along with multiple dead.
Despite frequent attacks in Balochistan the toll of Saturday’s blast was particularly high for the southwestern province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
The train station explosion hit at 8.45am local time yesterday and was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), one of the area’s main separatist groups.
The attack “was carried out on a Pakistani army unit at Quetta railway station... after completing a course at the Infantry School,” the BLA said.
The Associated Press of Pakistan, the official news agency, cited railway officials as saying the blast happened near the ticket booth when two trains were scheduled to depart.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack.
“The extremists who have harmed innocent and unmarked civilians will pay a heavy price,” he said. — AFP
