45 dead, over 110 injured in Pakistan blasts

ISLAMABAD (PAN, on Sunday, officials said.

Twenty-eight people were killed and 70 injured in a suicide bombing near an imambargah (Shiite mosque) in the Aliabad area of Hazara town in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, provincial officials told journalists.

Shortly after Maghreb (evening) prayers, the bomber on a bicycle blew himself up near the worship place, police officer Fayyaz Sumbal said. Law-enforcement personnel, including paramilitary troops and police, rushed to area to control the situation.

The bomber blew himself after being intercepted at a checkpoint set up by local volunteers some 50 yards from the mosque, said Balochistan Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani.

Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and the Hazara Democratic Party condemned the blast, with the minority Jaffaria Alliance announcing three days of mourning. Majlis-i-Wehdat-i-Muslimeen said it would hold nationwide protests against recent suicide attacks in the country.

Earlier in the day, 17 people were killed and 46 others wounded during an explosion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Women, children and security personnel were among the victims, who were evacuated to Lady Reading and Combined Military Hospitals in Peshawar.

Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar Javed Marwat told reporters 15 people were killed and 46 others wounded, some of them critically, in the attack in the Badaber area on the outskirts of the provincial capital.

A bomb disposal squad expert said at least 40 kilograms of explosives were used in the attack that targeted a convoy of paramilitary Frontier Corps troops.

mud

Visits: 18