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Bomb attack kills 2 in SW Pakistan

29 July 2011 19:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A close relative of a provincial chief executive in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province and another person were killed in a bomb attack on Friday, police and hospital sources said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The bomb attack outside a football stadium also injured nearly 30 people in Mastung district, some 80 kilometers from provincial capital Quetta, police said.

Nawabzada Mir Akmal Raisanai, nephew of Chief Minister of Balochistan Province Nawabzada Aslam Raisani, who was injured in the attack later died in a military hospital in Quetta of wounds. Another injured also died in hospital.

Witnesses said that an unidentified man threw a hand grenade at slain Raisani when he was heading to his car after distributing prizes among football players at the final match.

Firing was also reported after the blast, which created panic in the area. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In another incident, unidentified gunmen Friday shot dead at least seven Shia Muslims in Quetta, police said.

The devotees were waiting for a van at a bus station on Saryab road of Quetta, when the gunmen opened fired at them. Four died at the scene and three died later in hospital of wounds. The gunmen fled in a car after the attack. Police arrested several people for questioning.

The Shia Muslims were to board a bus to proceed to the border Pakistani town of Taftan from where they go to Iran to visit sacred places, officials said.

Nearly a dozen were injured in the attack.

The outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesman for the group Ali Sher Haidri claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it was the revenge of the murder of a scholar Maulvi Karim, who was killed in Quetta in firing on Thursday.

Quetta has seen a series of sectarian and targeted attacks in recent weeks.

Shia leaders strongly condemned the attack and said the government has failed to protect lives of the people. A leader of Shia community Tatriq Jaffry said many Shia Muslims have been killed in targeted attacks in Balochistan.