By Gul Yousafzai
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) -Four people were killed and fifteen injured in a bombing targeting a police vehicle in a marketplace in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Monday, a hospital official said.
Separatist group the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the blast, which was the second attack in less than 24 hours on police in Quetta, located in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
In a statement, the group also said four people were killed, including two policemen.
“The Baloch Liberation Army accepts responsibility for this attack and we reiterate our commitment that all atrocities against the Baloch people will be held to account,” Junaid Baloch, spokesperson for the BLA, said.
Senior police official Shafqat Cheema told Reuters the target was the vehicle of the acting superintendent of police investigations, which was parked in Kandahari Bazar.
He said initial reports showed an improvised device containing four-to-five kilograms of explosive was planted in a motorcycle parked behind the vehicle and detonated remotely.
Two police officers who were sitting in the vehicle were among the dead, Zohaib Mohsin Baloch, senior superintendent of police operations, said.
Wasim Baig, a spokesperson for the Quetta hospital, told Reuters the number of injured had reached 15 in addition to the four dead.
Before Monday’s attack, armed men on Sunday targeted personnel of the Police Eagle Squad in Quetta, killing two police officers and injuring another. One of the attackers was killed by police.
Balochistan is home to a number of China-backed economic projects under its belt and road initiative (BRI), against which some militants have been protesting.
Quetta has been dealing with a separatist ethnic insurgency, at the same time as Pakistan is dealing with unrelated violence carried out by Islamist militants.
Last week Pakistan launched a nationwide operation to try to root out Islamist militants.
(Reporting by Gul Yousafzai in Quetta, Gibran Peshimam; Writing by Sakshi Dayal and Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Toby Chopra, Jan Harvey and Barbara Lewis)
