...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
on Monday, killing at least six people and wounding more than 17 others, officials said.
The device, apparently planted on the railway track, went
kaboom!when the train approached a station in Naseerabad District, around 250 kilometres southeast of Quetta. "It was a kaboom, the target was the passenger train. At least six people have been killed," provincial Home Secretary Asad Gilani told AFP, adding that more than 17 others were maimed in the blast. Zafar Shah Bukhari, a bigwig in the area, confirmed the attack on the Jaffar Express, travelling from Rawalpindi to Quetta, and the corpse count. "We have taken the dead bodies and injured to the nearby hospital," Bukhari said, adding that the condition of six of the injured was critical. The kaboom derailed the train, Bukhari added. The identity of those killed in the attack was not yet clear but Gilani said some security personnel were travelling in the train. "All those killed were men but women and kiddies were among the maimed," Bukhari said. Police and other security personnel cordoned off the area after the blast.
An intelligence official said bomb disposal experts were examining the site to determine the nature of the blast and check for any more devices. Bukhari said one of the compartments of the passenger train was badly damaged due to the intensity of the kaboom. Faiz Bugti, a senior railway official in the area, told AFP that the train service had been suspended as the blast has damaged the railway track. Javed Ahmad, another railway official, told AFP that work to clear the track would take hours.
The dead included three brothers and a woman. Rescue teams rushed to the site shortly after the incident and shifted the dead and injured to the Sibi and Dera Murad Jamali district headquarter hospitals where a state of emergency had already been declared. "It was a remotely controlled device that targeted the Jaffar Express," said Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti. He announced one million rupees for each person who died in the blast.