 QUETTA -- A bomb blast damaged a government building and arsonists set fire to a telephone exchange in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday amid violent protests sparked by a prominent tribal chief's killing, a police official said.
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No casualties were sustained in the blast or fire in Kalat, a town about 250 kilometers south of Quetta, police official Ghulam Farid Jamali said. The bomb destroyed several rooms in the National Database and Registration Authority's offices, while masked men opened fire on the town's telephone exchange before setting it alight. Jamali said the attacks were carried out by protesting supporters of Nawab Akbar Bugti, 79, Baluchistan province's top tribal chief, who was killed Saturday by Pakistan forces in a raid on his mountain hide-out.
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Local political groups said Bugti's death had sparked a "never-ending war."
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Enraged mobs burned dozens of shops, buses, banks and police vehicles in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, in defiance of a round-the-clock curfew imposed Sunday by government authorities to try quell the outpouring of anger over Bugti's killing. Nine policemen suffered minor wounds in a clash with about 70 protesters, some firing pistols, who tried to loot a bank and several nearby shops in northern Quetta, police inspector Zahir Shah said. Police fired tear gas to disperse the mob. Quetta police chief Suleman Sayed said 450 people were arrested Sunday in Quetta as security forces tried to crack down on violence, which has spread to other parts of impoverished Baluchistan and into the neighboring Sindh province's capital of Karachi. "All forces have been put on alert," Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said on privately run Geo TV.
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