Car bomb targets two NGOs in Quetta

Car bomb exploded outside a charity's office.

QUETTA:

Suspected militants targeted the offices of nongovernmental organisations (NGO) with a car bomb here on Tuesday morning, injuring three people.

Police said the car bombing took place on Al-Gilani Street in the provincial capital. And the NGOs targeted were offering health and education facilities to people in Balochistan, which suffers from a Baloch insurgency, sectarian violence and Taliban militancy.

“It was a remote-controlled bomb and the target appears to be the offices of two NGOs – Tehrik and Mehak – which operate with local and foreign help to promote education and creating health awareness in Balochistan,” said Deputy Inspector-General (Operations) Hamid Shakil.

The office of Tehrik NGO was flattened in the blast. Shakil said around 20 kilogrammes of explosives were used in the attack. Tehrik NGO staff said they had received no threats of violence in the past.

Two passers-by, including a woman, and a security guard of Tehrik NGO, received shrapnel wounds but they are out of danger.

The windowpanes of over a dozen houses were shattered by the thud of the blast in the neighbourhood.

“The floor shook after a massive blast and I saw smoke rising from Gilani Street,” Mehboob Ahmed, who lives nearby, told The Express Tribune. “The roof of my house was also damaged in the explosion,” he added.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing and a police investigation had been started.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2011.