By Ashrafuddin Pirzada
PESHAWAR: A suicide bombing targeted an Army Public School bus in Khuzdar, a city in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, on Wednesday, killing five people, including four children and injuring 38 others, officials said.
According to Khuzdar’s Deputy Commissioner Yasir Iqbal, “This morning, the Army Public School bus was picking up students from various locations when it was targeted by a suicide bomber near the city.” Approximately 40 children were on board at the time.
He added that the area has been cordoned off, and evidence is being collected. Emergency has been declared in local hospitals, while the critically injured may be shifted to Quetta or Karachi for further treatment.
An eyewitness described the blast as so powerful that it completely destroyed the bus. “The explosion was so intense that the bus was thrown off the road, overturned and caught fire. Security forces and rescue teams quickly arrived at the scene and pulled out the children.”
Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the killing of children in the attack, stating, “Those who target innocent children are monsters and deserve no mercy.”
He further added, “This brutal act is a heinous conspiracy by the enemies to destabilize the country by attacking innocent children.”
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing. However, suspicion has fallen on ethnic Baloch separatists, who have previously carried out similar attacks.
The latest bombing comes just days after a car bomb explosion near a market in Qila Abdullah, another city in Balochistan near the Afghan border, which killed four people.
Army Public School students have been targeted in the past as well. On December 16, 2014, over 144 people, mostly students, were killed in a deadly attack on the APS campus in Peshawar.
According to police, law enforcement personnel have reached the site and launched a search operation in the area.
The military’s media wing, ISPR, said that those involved in planning, facilitating and executing this cowardly attack will soon be brought to justice.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area but the smallest by population. With around 15 million residents and vast mineral resources, the province has faced decades of insurgency and unrest.
