ISLAMABAD, 11 December 2004 — Ten people, including a soldier, were killed and 23 injured yesterday in a bomb explosion near an army truck in southwestern Pakistan at Mezaa Chowk, Quetta.
The incident happened at 4:15 p.m. and soon after the victims were taken to Quetta Civil Hospital where six survivors were reported in critical condition. Four of the wounded were army personnel, police and hospital sources said.
The truck belonging to Pakistan’s prestigious Staff College was badly damaged along with three private cars. Television showed scenes of chaos with crowds loading injured people into minibuses and ambulances.
Akbar Ali, director of Quetta’s bomb disposal unit, said that the bomb was apparently planted on a bicycle parked near the truck. “We are investigating if it was timed device or a remote controlled bomb,” he added.
The bomb weighed between 15 to 20 kilograms, sources said. Witnesses said the blast in the main city of Baluchistan province occurred in the center of the city.
“Nobody knew what happened. We thought it was an earthquake,” said vegetable seller Ali Mohammad, who was sitting across the road.
“There were dead bodies and wounded and blood was splattered in the area.”
The Baluchistan Liberation Army, a self-proclaimed nationalist group, said it carried out the attack. “Our target was the military truck,” said Azad Baluch, calling himself the group’s spokesman.
“It was to express our anger,” he said in a telephone call from an unknown location to journalists at Quetta Press Club.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the “heinous act of terrorism”. He said “enemies of Pakistan were behind the explosion and, the people responsible “would not go unpunished”.
The Quetta police chief, Parvez Rafee Bhati, said the attack had “political motives”, adding that “nationalist elements” opposed to Pakistan’s federal government were behind it.
Baluchistan has been hit by a series of low-level bombings in recent years.
Most of the explosions have not caused any casualties, and have been blamed on feuding tribesmen. However, there have also been signs that the region has become a base for Taleban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
