Another blast: 8-year-old girl dies in Quetta bombing

FC vehicles or New Saryab police station could have been targets: police.

QUETTA:

An eight-year-old girl was killed and 17 others were injured in a bomb blast near New Saryab police station on the outskirts of Quetta Valley, officials said on Saturday.

Senior police officer Mohammed Jaffar said an improvised explosive device (IED) was planted under a pushcart in a busy area of New Saryab, he told The Express Tribune.

The explosion took place while two vehicles of Frontier Corps (FC) passed the area. Quetta police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the target could have been the FC or the police station. However, no security officer was hurt in the explosion, though one of the vehicles of security forces was partially damaged.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A heavy contingent of police and security forces cordoned off the area. Rescue workers moved the girl’s body and the injured to the Provincial Sandeman Hospital, where two of those wounded are said to be in a critical condition.

Most of the victims were passersby and pushcart owners as the blast took place near the main intersection in New Saryab from passenger vans leave for nearby districts and downtown Quetta.

The slain girl was identified as Sajida Bibi, a resident of Dasht Mastung district. All the victims belonged to either Quetta or Mastung.

According to the Bomb Disposal Squad, around five kilogrammes of explosives were used. It was the second blast in two weeks in Quetta as earlier 11 people were killed and 42 others injured in the deadly bombing in front of Science College, Quetta.

A police officer Mohammed Jaffar has said the modus operandi of the New Saryab blast was the same as that of the Science College. “But it would be premature to reach any conclusion in this stage of the investigation.”

Police chief Cheema said it has become hard to trace culprits behind bombings as there are no CCTV cameras installed in Quetta Valley. “A project is under way to install CCTV cameras in the city, which will help in tracing the perpetrators,” he told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2014.