By Bimbo Ogunnaike with agency report
No fewer than 10 people, including two police officers, have been killed in a bomb attack in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.
The attack, which took place in the provincial capital Quetta on Monday, has also left 35 injured.
Senior Police official, Abdul Razzaq Cheema, said a young bomber who intended to target a religious group’s rally in Quetta detonated his explosives after police stopped him at a security barrier.
“As police were searching him, he detonated his vest,” , resulting in the killing of 10 people, including two policemen, while injuring 35 others,” Cheema said.
A local hospital official has also confirmed the casualties, saying, “We have received 10 bodies so far and 35 injured in Civil Hospital.”
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan’s restive and mineral-rich Balochistan province is rife with separatist, extremist and sectarian violence and has been the scene of several bomb and gun attacks over the past years.
Late last month, at least five people were killed and more than two dozen others injured in an attack by militants on a police office in Balochistan.
The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.
Last month, at least seven people, including five police officers, were killed and nearly two dozen others wounded in a bomb blast that struck a police vehicle in the province.
Despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army, acts of terror by militants continue to target security forces as well as civilians.
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