QUETTA
The death toll in a suicide bombing that targeted a police headquarters in Pakistan's Quetta city on Thursday rose to 30.
Inspector General of Police Balochistan, Mushtaq Sukhera told Anadolu Agency that 40 people were also injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a crowd at police headquarters that gathered to offer the funeral prayer of a slain police inspector.
The deceased included the head of operations of city police Fayaz Ahmed Sunbal, and a superintendent and a deputy superintendent of police.
Hospital authorities fear increase in death toll as condition of many injured was stated to be very serious.
According to police, 250 to 300 people were gathering in a mosque inside the Quetta police headquarters to attend the funeral ceremony of a police inspector who was gunned down by militants on Thursday morning, when a suicide bomber blew himself up on the gate of the mosque.
No group has so far claimed the responsibility of the attack so far, however intelligence officials believe that outlawed TTP or its offshoot groups could be behind the incident.
“Initial investigations suggest that 8 to 10 kg of explosive material has been used in this blast,” Ghulam Mohammad, a bomb disposal official, told Anadolu Agency.
“Many have received serious injuries due to high quantity of explosive material," he added.
Police quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the suicide bomber, believed to be in his mid 20s, was attired in shalwar kameez (lose trouser and shirt) and wearing short beard.
“As I was lining up for funeral prayers (of the slain inspector), a huge blast knocked me down”, Mohamed Bilal, who sustained injuries in his arm and back, told AA at civil hospital Quetta where he was being treated.
“The blast was too huge as I felt the sky had fallen. It tossed me and I landed on the grounds 10 to 12 meters away…People started running haphazardly even crossing over the injured who were lying on the ground,” Bilal recalled.
Rescue workers rushed to the scene and moved the bodies and injured to different hospitals.
Quetta has been epicenter of sectarian violence and attacks on security forces for the last eight years.
The security forces, on the one hand, have been fighting the secular Baloch separatists, whereas on the other hand they have been engaged in operations against sectarian militants whose prime target is the Shiite Hazara community from Afghanistan settled in and around Quetta.
Hundreds of Hazaras have been killed and injured in a series of suicide bombings and targeted killings in Quetta during the last few years.
Outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi , a Sunni militant group, has claimed the responsibility for the most of suicide bombings against Hazaras and security forces in Quetta.
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