11 dead in car bomb blast in Pakistan’s Quetta
A suicide car bomber killed at least 11 people, including four police officers and wounded 20 others in an attack near a checkpoint in the volatile southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, officials say.
“The blast targeted a police pick-up in front of the IG (Inspector General) office,” said Mohammed Tariq, a senior police official.
TV footage showed several badly damaged cars and a road littered with broken glass.
Anwarul Haq Kakar, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the bomb was planted in a moving car, but officers were trying to determine whether it was a suicide attack.
The normally busy intersection – which lies between a girls’ school, a girls’ college, the police office and the entrance to the army cantonment – was relatively quiet because Friday is a public holiday ahead of the Eid celebrations marking the end of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Kakar blamed neighboring India for the blast. He offered no evidence.
Quetta is the provincial capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan. The province has been the scene of gun and bomb attacks over the past years.
