- Title: PAKISTAN: Quetta residents deplore bomb attacks
- Date: 16th June 2013
- Summary: QUETTA, PAKISTAN (JUNE 16, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SECURITY OUTSIDE WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY BALUCHISTAN. SECURITY PERSONNEL STANDING NEAR GUTTED BUS VARIOUS OF GUTTED BUS EXTERIOR OF BOLAN MEDICAL COMPLEX HOSPITAL POLICE OFFICIAL STANDING IN DAMAGED EMERGENCY WARD VARIOUS OF DAMAGED EMERGENCY WARD DAMAGED CORRIDOR POLICE OFFICIAL IN CIVILIAN DRESS STANDING IN CASUALTY WARD F
- Embargoed: 1st July 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Pakistan
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Crime
- Reuters ID: LVA39ZTA3N8ME3N7L7BAJWPGDFAA
- Story Text: Residents of Quetta on Sunday (June 16) deplored an attack in western Pakistan the previous day when militants bombed a bus carrying female students and then seized part of the hospital where survivors of the attack were taken for treatment. At least 23 people died in the bus attack.
The government declared a day of mourning and Pakistan's flag was at half mast on all government buildings.
The gunmen in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province long plagued by sectarian violence, were in the emergency ward of the hospital, and launched a firefight with security forces.
The security forces had forced their way into part of the Bolan Medical Complex, where dozens of patients and staff were believed to be trapped.
Parts of the emergency ward were completely destroyed by the militants who blew themselves up in the hospital.
The attack in resource-rich Baluchistan was Pakistan's most lethal since the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took office last week and followed earlier explosions in a nearby town that killed a policeman and destroyed an historic building.
City Police Chief Mir Zubair Mehmood said the students on the bus were from various ethnic groups, including Hazaras, targets of a series of bombings earlier this year.
The initial blast gutted the bus while it was on the campus of a local university for women, killing at least 11 students, and another explosion went off soon after at the hospital, the city's largest. Television footage showed people fleeing the building in panic. Shots were fired from automatic weapons.
Residents of Quetta demanded action to counter unabated violence in the province.
"Security agencies and civil government should make a plan. It happens everywhere and they control it. Why are we unable to do anything when we have lots of resources," resident Rashid Kakar told reporters. "We are unable to control this situation, it's been happening for the last 10 years," he added.
Local media said that the sectarian extremist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Jan Mohammed Bulaidi, spokesman for Baluchistan's new chief minister, who took office last Sunday, said he believed the second attack was targeted at government officials.
Those killed at the hospital included a senior government official, three security officials and a nurse, he said. The city's nursing federation said three more nurses and two family members of the student victims also died.
Some resident said that justice must be seen to be done.
"If the culprits are arrested and punished in front of the public then who would dare to carry out bombings," said Gul Mohammad a resident of Quetta U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned Saturday's (June 15) attacks in a statement issued late the same day. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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