A devastating suicide bombing at Quetta Railway Station in Pakistan’s Balochistan province Saturday morning killed at least 25 people and injured about 50 others. The blast occurred as a popular morning train was getting ready to depart from Quetta for Peshawar, turning a bustling platform into a scene of devastation.
Balochistan Liberation Army, one of the militant separatist groups, today claimed responsibility for the attack said to have targeted a unit that had reportedly returned from a training exercise in the Quetta city.
According to senior police officer Muhammad Baloch, the authorities treated this as a suicide bombing, where the attacker was believed to have been carrying 6-8 kilograms of explosives. Both civilians and military personnel were killed in the attack as testimony to the lack of selectivity in violence.
The eyewitnesses described the scenes as chaotic and horrible. Abdul Jabbar, who was at the station, heading to catch the train, said that it was like judgment day; people screamed for help amid debris. Muhammad Sohail, who was traveling, expressed the immediate moments after, saying that everything was destroyed…people were lying on the ground screaming for help.
The blast has drawn sharp condemnations from Pakistani officials. Attacking this manner would be described as worse than animals, says the Balochistan Chief Minister, and continues with the promise that justice shall be served in this case. Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan condemned the bombing as an act by “enemies of humanity”.
The Balochistan province is the largest and least developed in Pakistan. It has been haunted over time by an insurgency. The most important separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, BLA, fights for greater autonomy as well as power over the rich natural resources of the region. That makes this attack part of a new wave of militant violence in the province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, making regional security threats all the more critical.
