Islamabad, Nov 1 (EFE).– A bomb blast outside a girls’ school in Pakistan’s western Balochistan province killed at least seven people, including five students, and injured 15 others on Friday, police said.
Police officer Naseer Khan said the bomb exploded outside the school around 9 a.m. in the Mastung area.
Another police officer, Ansar Hussain, said five schoolgirls, a passerby, and a cop were among the dead.
Fifteen people, including 11 schoolgirls and four policemen, sustained injuries. The injured students, aged between six and fifteen, were en route to school when the attack occurred.
Khan said the bomb, planted on a motorcycle, targeted a passing police vehicle. No group responsibility for the attack.
Chief Minister Balochistan Sarfraz Bugti, in a statement on X, condemned the attack, stating the terrorists targeted innocent children and poor laborers.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the “attack on a school was loud evidence of terrorists’ animosity towards education in Balochistan.”
Mastung is in the volatile province of Balochistan, which has seen a sharp rise in violence in recent years.
Several separatist groups, seeking greater autonomy for the resource-rich region, frequently clash with security forces in the area.
Baloch nationalist groups claim that the province’s natural resources, including gas and oil, are exploited for the benefit of other regions, without fair compensation for residents.
Attacks against foreign nationals, especially Chinese citizens working on infrastructure projects funded by Beijing, have also escalated in the province.
Pakistan has seen a spike in violence since the Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021. Most of the attacks occur in the border provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TPP) this week said it was behind an attack on another control post, in which at least 10 provincial security officers were killed.
The TPP is not allied with the Taliban in Afghanistan, although the groups share a common ideology.
The Pakistani authorities claim that Taliban militants use Afghan territory to carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban government has denied those allegations. EFE
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