QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a stadium Tuesday night as supporters of a nationalist party were leaving a rally in insurgency-hit southwest Pakistan, killing at least 13 people and wounding 30 others, police and hospital officials said Wednesday.
Local police chief Majeed Qaisrani said the blast occurred near a graveyard close to the stadium on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
The body parts of the attacker were recovered, he said.
Waseem Baig, a spokesman for a government hospital, said it had received 13 bodies and dozens of wounded, some in critical condition.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The rally was held to mark the anniversary of the death of Sardar Ataullah Mengal, a veteran nationalist leader and former provincial chief minister.
The leader of the Balochistan National Party, Akhtar Mengal, was unharmed in the attack, but some of his supporters were among the dead and wounded, senior police officer Usama Ameen said.
A suicide bombing near a political rally in southwestern Pakistan kills 13 and wounds 30
Mengal is a vocal critic of the government and often holds rallies to demand the release of missing Baloch nationalists.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the bombing as a “cowardly act of the enemies of humanity,” ordering the best possible medical care for the wounded and a high-level probe to bring the perpetrators to justice.
In Islamabad, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also denounced the attack, blaming “India-backed terrorists and their facilitators” for trying to destabilize the country by targeting civilians.
Pakistan’s government and Bugti in recent months have frequently accused India of backing both the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch separatists, a charge New Delhi denied.
Balochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency, with groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army demanding independence from the central government.
The separatists have largely targeted security forces and workers from Pakistan’s Punjab province.
On Wednesday, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Kurram, a district in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing five people, local police official Hameed Hussain said., This news data comes from:http://hxwfx.gyglfs.com
The attackers quickly fled to the nearby mountains, and the dead were Sunni Muslims, he added.
Kurram has been the scene of sectarian violence in recent years.
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