QUETTA: A minor girl was killed and 15 others injured Saturday in a powerful explosion on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province, police said.
Imran Qureshi, the Superintendent of Police, said militants targeted the vehicle of Frontier Corps (FC) through an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on Quetta's Sariab road area. He said the militants had planted an IED in a rickshaw parked on the roadside.
"There was a powerful blast when a FC vehicle was passing by in the area," Qureshi stated.
The injured included three FC personnel, women and children. He added that a minor girl succumbed to her injuries on her way to a hospital.
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The SP said the intensity of the blast smashed the windows of nearby homes and shops located in the area.
City police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema confirmed the attack and said three of the wounded were seriously injured. The wounded also included up to eight children, he added, without giving ages.
The injured persons were quickly rushed to Civil Hospital Quetta for medical treatment. Doctors and paramedics were called in on an emergency basis to treat the injured persons.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. However, police suspect that Baloch militants operating in the area carried out the attack.
Sariab road is considered to be one of the sensitive areas of Quetta. Militants have been targeting security forces in the area for almost a decade.
Quetta has been hit by numerous attacks in recent years, including two devastating bombings in early 2013 which targeted minority Hazara Shia Muslims and killed nearly 180 people.
Balochistan, the size of Italy and rich in copper, gold and natural gas, is Pakistan's largest but least populous province.
It is also the least developed, which has exacerbated a long-running ethnic separatist movement that wants more autonomy and a greater share of its mineral wealth.
The latest armed insurgency rose up in 2004 and separatist groups still regularly attack Pakistani forces.