At least four people were injured in an explosion outside a mosque on Quetta’s Sariab Road on Friday, police said.
A video showed worshippers coming out of the mosque as an explosion was heard. According to police, some explosive material fitted on the motorcycle went off. Television footage of the scene showed the bike engulfed in flames with thick plumes of smoke blowing from it.
Quetta Deputy Inspector General Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the nature of the explosion could not be immediately ascertained and police were investigating if explosives were planted on a bike or if the vehicle caught fire. But another police official told a private TV channel that 1-1.5 kilogrammes of explosive material was left in a bag next to a motorcycle parked outside the mosque. He said the blast was caused after the detonator blew up but the explosives themselves didn’t catch fire.
More destruction would have been caused if the explosive material had gone off, he added.
The wounded were shifted to the Civil Hospital for treatment. Police cordoned off the area as the probe into the blast went underway. According to the state-run news agency, shops were shut down as panic gripped the area following the blast. The law enforcers cordoned off the explosion site to collect evidence and launched a search operation in the area to arrest the culprits. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Separately, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz strongly condemned attack on security forces in North Waziristan. In a tweet, the minister paid homage to Lieutenant Nasir Hussain Khalid, Naik Mohammad Imran and Sepoy Usman Akhtar, the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the motherland. Praying for the souls of the martyred, Shibli Faraz said that the nation stood by the armed forces in the war against terrorism.
