QUETTA, 18 February 2007 — A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people, including senior judge Abdul Wahid Durrani, when he blew himself up yesterday inside a court in southwest Pakistan, police said.
Dozens of people were injured in the blast, which officials suspect is linked to a wave of recent suicide attacks in Pakistan blamed on pro-Taleban militants angry at President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terror. The explosion took place in the compound of district courts, also housing some police offices, in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province bordering insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan and Iran.
According to eyewitnesses, “surprisingly no policeman did a body search on the bomber” though a large number of policemen are stationed in the sessions and district courts of Quetta. “The bomber entered the courtroom, stood leaning against a wall and detonated,” Balochistan police chief Tariq Khosa told AFP. Khosa said Judge Durrani and several lawyers and court officials were among the dead.
“We have found a severed head with a partly undamaged face and we believe it is of the suicide bomber,” Khosa said, adding that forensic experts were working on the scene to collect more evidence. The blast ripped a large hole in the wall, he added.
“At least 15 people have been killed including some lawyers, and around 35 people are wounded,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Javed Cheema told AFP.
A doctor at Quetta’s main hospital said at least 10 of the injured were in a critical condition with severe burns. Other casualties had multiple broken bones and shrapnel wounds, Ahmed Khan said.
Local television showed the scene of destruction, with policemen collecting limbs and pieces of human flesh from the blood-stained ground of the compound. Broken furniture and debris littered the scene. The explosion hit when hundreds of people were inside the compound for court cases and police inquiries, as well as those collecting driving licenses from an office inside the complex.
In a statement, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz strongly condemned the attack and said such attacks would not weaken the government’s resolve in fighting terrorism. “Killing of innocent people is against Islam and humanity, and will not go unpunished,” he said from the northwestern city of Peshawar, where he was visiting to console the family of a senior police officer killed in a suicide attack late last month.
Munir Tajik, a businessman from Quetta whose offices are located very close to courts, told Arab News, “security agencies had prior knowledge of some kind of act of terrorism. Quetta is a very sensitive region. Here intelligence men from Afghanistan and Iran frequently operate.”
Most of the dead were identified including Yar Muhammad, Abdullah Mashwani, Jalil Kakar, Jumma Khan, Muhammad Zaman, Asad Mengal, Muhammad Azhar, Najeebullah Abdul Ghias, and Najibullah.
Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Yousuf has called a meeting of Cabinet members and security chiefs.
— With input from agencies
