Panjgur violence: Bomb targeting police van kills five

Four police personnel injured in two other blasts.

QUETTA:

Violence continues unabated despite the imposition of governor’s rule in Balochistan. On Tuesday, at least five policemen, including a senior official, were killed in a bomb blast while three civilians were wounded elsewhere in the volatile province.

Suspected insurgents remotely detonated a bomb targeting a police patrol van in Panjgur district, killing five policemen, among them a deputy superintendent of police (DSP). According to hospital sources, the bodies were badly mutilated.

The bomb was planted on a roadside, police official Atiqur Rehman told The Express Tribune by phone from Panjgur. He added that the police van was destroyed in the blast.



The victims, identified as DSP CID Naseem Baloch and Constables Tahir, Noor Ahmed, Mohsin Ali and Abdul Wahid, were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Police registered a case and started investigation.

Separately, a policeman was injured in an explosion in the Bakra Mandi area of Eastern Bypass – on the fringes of Quetta.

Mohammad Akram, an official at the New Sariab police station, told The Express Tribune that the explosion occurred near a police mobile van parked in the Bakra Mandi area. Resultantly, police constable Muhammad Naeem sustained minor injuries and was shifted to the Civil Hospital.



In another incident, at least three policemen were injured in a bomb blast in Chaman, a town on the border with Afghanistan. According to sources, the bomb was planted near the wall of the Saddar police station in Chaman.

Three policemen sustained injuries and were shifted to the hospital. The police said the device was planted in a gas cylinder.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2013.