Islamabad, May 21 (EFE).- At least five people were killed, including three children, and about 40 others were wounded Wednesday in an attack using explosives on a school bus in Pakistan’s southeastern province of Balochistan, official sources said.
“The Army Public School bus was transporting children from various locations to school when it was targeted by a suicide bomber near Khuzdar city,” Hayat Ullah, a police official of the district, told EFE.
The Pakistani army, in a statement from its press service (ISPR), confirmed the deaths of at least five people, three of them children, and directly blamed India for the attack.
According to the statement, the attack was “planned and orchestrated by the terrorist state of India and executed by its proxies in Balochistan.”
“Use of terrorism as a state policy by the Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard of basic human norms,” said the statement, adding that the perpetrators would be “hunted down and brought to justice.”
The authorities have begun investigations at the site of the attack, while a state of emergency has been declared in local hospitals.
The most seriously injured were being taken to specialized medical centers in Quetta and Karachi, two of the country’s main cities, according to the Ullah.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the “explosion inside the bus,” a statement from his office said, expressing deep sorrow and grief over the death of the children, and extending his condolences to their families.
“The beasts who target innocent children do not deserve any leniency. The enemy demonstrated barbarity by attacking innocent children,” Naqvi asserted.
Balochistan, a region rich in mineral resources and bordering Afghanistan and Iran, often witnesses violence linked to separatist movements, Islamist militias and other armed groups operating against the state.
The area has been suffering from an insurgency for years as rebel groups denounce unfair exploitation of the region’s natural resources by the central government. EFE
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