Terrorism: Bicycle bomb leaves 26 wounded in Quetta

Terror act coincides with President Mamnoon’s visit to the provincial capital

QUETTA: At least 26 people were wounded in a bomb blast on Quetta’s Prince Road on Wednesday night. The bomb, packed with five kilogrammes of explosives, nuts and bolts, was planted in a bicycle.

Prince Road is one of the busiest streets in downtown Quetta where dozens of eateries and shops are located. The area was packed with people when the blast occurred.

“At least 26 civilians were wounded, three of them critically, in the bicycle bombing on Prince Road,” city police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema told The Express Tribune. The blast coincides with President Mamnoon Hussain’s arrival in Quetta on a two-day visit.

Cheema said an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) weighting five kilogrammes was fitted to a bicycle and parked outside a hotel. As a result of the explosion, 26 people, including two children, sustained splinter wounds. Six shops caught fire after the blast.

Rescue workers, police and security forces rushed to the scene and cordoned off the area. Fire tenders were called in to extinguish the fire that had erupted in the shops. The injured were transported to Provincial Sandeman Hospital. “At least 26 injured were brought here after the blast. Two are about eight to nine years old,” doctors at the hospital said.

At least six shops, six motorbikes, a car, a pickup and rickshaw were damaged in the blast. The windowpanes of several shops and hotels were shattered under the impact.

Cheema said there was no security official in the area. “The target was public place to spread terror,” he said.

Shahid Iqbal, an injured at Sandeman Hospital, told The Express Tribune that he was passing through the area on his motorcycle when a huge blast occurred and black thick smoke covered everything. “I fell down on the floor and later found myself in hospital,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2014.