Terror in Quetta

Terrorists have again started targeting Balochistan. On Friday, 15 people were killed and 19 others wounded in a suicide bombing inside a mosque in Quetta during evening prayers. The police said nine people died on the spot and around two dozen others were injured. Six of the wounded later died at Civil Hospital Quetta. A spokesman for the hospital said they had received 15 bodies and 19 injured. He described the condition of at least seven of the injured as serious. Just two days earlier a targeted attack on a Frontier Corps vehicle at a busy market had left two people dead.

According to the bomb disposal squad, Friday’s suicide bomber had 7 to 8 kilorammes of explosive material strapped to his body. A witness, who was offering prayers at the mosque, said around 60 people were present inside when the blast occurred. The explosion ripped through the front row of the faithful soon after the prayers began. A DSP, Haji Hakimullah Ishaqzai, who was offering prayers, also died in the bombing. The prayer leader is also believed to have died in the attack. Only last month the late DSP’s young son, Najibullah, had been killed by unidentified assailants in the Sariab Road area of the city.

The police said the mosque and the adjacent religious school in Ghousabad locality belonged to a prominent cleric named Sheikh Hakimullah. While the Hizbul Ahrar group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, so far no group or individual has accepted responsibility for the one at the mosque. A senior investigation officer said Friday’s blast seemed similar to the Kuchlak mosque explosion that occurred in August last year. The prayer leader, Hafiz Hammadullah, had also died in that blast.

Terrorists have been targeting Quetta and other places in Balochistan for the past one year. Political observers are of the view that terrorists have been targeting Balochistan because it is key to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. CPEC is to connect China’s Xinjiang province with the Pakistani port of Gwadar, giving China access to the Arabian Sea.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2020.

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