PMDC manager dies in IED attack near Quetta

QUETTA:

In a major setback to the natural resources-rich province of Balochistan, the manager of the Pakistan Minerals Development Corporation (PMDC) on Sunday was martyred in a powerful explosion in the Sorange area of Quetta district.

Police sources said Shabahat Mirza’s vehicle was targeted using an improvised explosive device (IED), causing his immediate demise.
They added that his driver had suffered injuries in the attack and was admitted to a hospital.

The blast completely destroyed the PMDC manager’s vehicle.

Police and Frontier Corps personnel reached the scene and started their investigation into the attack. Security was beefed up in and around Sorange after the blast, which jolted the whole mountainous belt of Quetta.

The area has rich coal reserves and thousands of miners are working there.

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Separately, a seven-year-old child was martyred and two people were injured in an explosion in FR Bannu Baka Khel town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s North Waziristan district.

Police said the child, Zabihullah, found objects that resembled a cricket bat and ball near his home. He took them home and was playing with them when the blast occurred. His mother, 28-year-old Gurbz Begum, and a relative, 12-year-old Waseemullah, suffered injuries in the blast.

The police added that the injured people were admitted to a hospital and they had launched a probe into the incident.

Although nobody has claimed responsibility for the two explosions, terrorists of banned outfits, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Daesh, have infiltrated into Balochistan and K-P provinces of the country in recent times and carried out numerous attacks.

In January this year, around a 100 people, mostly police officials, were martyred and over 150 were injured after an explosion ripped through a mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines area.

On the 29th of last month, at least 60 people were martyred in two separate attacks in Balochistan and K-P.

In the first attack, 55 people were martyred and over 60 others injured in a suicide blast near Madina Masjid in Mastung, Balochistan that targeted a procession on 12th Rabiul Awwal.

The second attack took place in K-P’s Hangu, where a bomb blast targeting a police station’s mosque martyred five people and injured 12 others.

According to the Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies’ (PICSS) monthly report, terrorist attacks in Pakistan have increased with 136 people killed in 65 militant attacks across the country in September.

"Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) emerged as the most targeted region, with 23 attacks resulting in 34 deaths and 78 injuries. Balochistan, on the other hand, saw a substantial increase in fatalities, primarily due to a single attack in Mastung," it read.

(With input from our Peshawar correspondent)