Lashkar-e-Jhangvi responsible for Quetta blast

QUETTA: The death toll in Quetta's Civil Hospital Suicide blast rose to 12 on Friday evening, as banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier, CCPO Quetta Shabir Ahmed Sheikh has hinted that the suicide bomber involved in the Quetta attack did not belong to the region. He said the bomber's identity will be revealed soon after the investigation is complete.

A suicide bomber killed 12 people and injured 47 others, including a TV journalist and senior police officials, in a suspected sectarian attack inside a hospital in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta on Friday.

This blast in Quetta took place after the body of a bank manager, who had earlier been shot dead, was brought to the Civil Hospital. People had gathered at the hospital to condole his death when the explosion occurred.

Bank Manager Ashraf Zaidi had been gunned down, earlier today, by 2 unidentified assailants at Qandhari Road in Quetta. It appears to have been an incident of target killing.

Assailants shot Zaidi in the head and chest, right at the main entrance of the bank, after which they fled the scene. Ashraf Zaidi was the son a famous religious leader of Quetta.

A member of parliament from the ruling Pakistan People's Party was among the scores wounded in the attack outside the emergency ward of the hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, officials said.

"Ten people, including two senior police officials, were killed in the attack and another 47 wounded," provincial police chief Rehmatullah Niazi told reporters.

A cameraman from the private TV news channel Samaa was among the dead while five other reporters sustained injuries.

Another senior police official said it was a suicide attack and a severed head had been found at the scene. It had not been verified that it was the bomber's head. The official said it appeared to be a sectarian attack against Shi'ites.

Police said 15 kg (33 lb) of explosives were used in the bomb that badly damaged the emergency ward building. Broken window glass and pools of bloods marked the scene of the attack.

Shi'ite Muslims are a minority in Pakistan, which is about 80 percent Sunni, and thousands of people have been killed in sectarian violence across the country in the past 30 years.

Express news reporter and MNA Agha Nasir Shah were also been injured in the blast.