One killed, 13 injured in Quetta hand grenade explosion

QUETTA (Pakistan): One person was killed and at least 13 others, including a woman, were injured on Friday after a hand-grenade exploded close to an auto-rickshaw on Sabzal road, on the outskirts of Quetta.

According to the police sources, some unknown motorcyclists hurled a hand grenade, apparently targeting a nearby security checkpoint on Sabzal road, but it landed close to the auto-rickshaw passing through the area, reported Dawn.

Police and personnel of other law-enforcement agencies rushed to the blast scene and shifted the injured to a civil hospital.

Civil Hospital spokesman Dr Wasim Baig said that the body and the injured were brought to the hospital and at least three of the injured are in serious condition.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to arrest the attackers, reported Dawn.

In another such incident in Kohat, Some unknown men hurled a grenade at a police station at the old toll plaza of Kohat Friendship Tunnel late on Thursday night. However, the grenade could not explode. According to the police, the grenade was hurled from a van, but luckily it did not explode.

They said the vehicle sped away towards Peshawar, reported Dawn. The police said that an operation was launched in the area to arrest the terrorists.

The Counter-Terrorism Department has registered an FIR and started investigations.

Recently, on Thursday, at least three policemen were injured in a hand grenade blast that occurred near Bilitang police station of Kohat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Unidentified people attacked the police station with a hand grenade device, which exploded killing three policemen.

Pakistan has been witnessing several instances of lawlessnesses in recent days. The country is facing crises on several fronts including an economic slump and floods in large parts.

Compounding this is the regular occurrence of violence. Earlier, on Tuesday, at least five people, including a peace committee member, two police officials, and his security guards, were killed in a blast in Swat's Bara Bandai area.

A roadside bomb attack targeted a vehicle of the peace committee member, Idrees Khan, who was an ex-Village Defence Council (Aman Committee) Chairman of Kabal Tehsil, Swat, local media reported.

Last week, at least, seven people, including a woman and a minor girl, were injured when unidentified motorcyclists hurled a grenade at a roundabout at Quetta's Khuram-i-Dad Chowk.

Police said that three of them were severely injured. Earlier, a Pakistani constable was killed after an unidentified person, whom officials termed 'militants' hurled a hand grenade at the Khanmai police station in Charsadda.

A similar incident took place on August 28 when at least two persons were injured in a grenade attack in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

The attack occurred at the Khuzdar's Khand link road where two persons were seriously injured when unknown attackers hurled a hand grenade at a car, Dawn reported citing police officials.

On August 8, unidentified gunmen killed two people and injured four others in firing in the Pashtunabad area.

Not only local civilians, but police officials were also the target of the terror organization.

On August 7, three people, including a policeman were injured in a remote-controlled blast that occurred in Quetta's Hazar Ganji area on Sunday, media reports said. In recent months, several cases of bomb attacks have been reported in Pakistan.