QUETTA: Twenty-two people have been arrested over the landmine blasts that killed six at a police training school in southwestern Pakistan this week, a senior officer said yesterday.He said the blasts were set off by booby-traps laid by “highly trained terrorists”, denying that local people were involved.
“We have arrested 22 people in raids over the past 24 hours,” provincial police chief Chaudhry Mohamed Yaqub said. “We are interrogating them.”
Six policemen were killed and dozens were wounded on Thursday when five landmines blew up in quick succession during target practice on a firing range at the school in the provincial capital Quetta.
“It was the work of highly trained terrorists. They cannot be local people,” the police chief said. “I cannot give details at this moment.”
Officials earlier blamed the blasts on anti-government tribesmen who have been waging a two-year insurgency in the province to press their demands for a greater share of local natural resources.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a group called the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), which was outlawed by Pakistan last month and branded a terrorist organisation.
Yaqub said the latest arrests followed interrogation of two suspects arrested from the area soon after the blasts.
Police have said they were investigating the pair for possible links with an Afghan family who lived near the site and were killed in an explosion at their home last month.