At least four killed in Quetta bus bombing
18 June, 2012
QUETTA: A car bomb tore into a university bus in Quetta on Monday, killing four people and wounding more than 40 others, mostly students, police said.
The attack took place on the outskirts of Quetta. "An improvised-explosive device planted in a car parked on the roadside exploded near the bus of the local IT university, killing four people and wounding over 40 others, mostly students," said CCPO Mir Zubair. "The bomb targeted the bus as it carried a majority of Shiite students," he added. Zubair identified the dead as three students and one passer-by.
The injured were transferred to a military hospital for greater protection, said Muhammad Nawaz, a doctor at the local Civil Hospital. There was no claim of responsibility for the latest attack.
According to sources in Quetta and local media reports, the blast took place at about 8:20 a.m. local time when a bus carrying at least 52 students from Balochistan IT University was hit by a bomb fixed inside a small Suzuki car parked by the roadside near a Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) building on the Smangli Road of Quetta.
The blast left a two-foot-deep crater on the ground, said eyewitnesses, adding that several vehicles including a motorbike and a rickshaw nearby were also destroyed.
Bomb disposal squad officials said that an estimated 50 kg of explosives were used in the blast.
Rehman Malik, condemned the attack and said that terrorists in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, were playing in the hands of their foreign masters.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also condemned the attack and directed the hospital authorities to provide the best possible medical treatment to the injured people.
Angry students staged a protest nearby the hospitals where the injured were admitted following the blast.
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