Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claims accountability for assault that focused officers deployed to guard polio vaccination marketing campaign employees.
Islamabad, Pakistan – A suicide bomb blast has struck a police car within the southwestern Pakistani metropolis of Quetta, killing at the very least one police officer and two civilians and wounding dozens, in accordance with police.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) armed group, also called the Pakistani Taliban, claimed accountability for Wednesday’s assault, two days after asserting an finish to a ceasefire agreed with the federal government in June.
Quetta Police’s Deputy Inspector Normal (DIG) Ghulam Azfar Mahesar advised reporters the car that was focused was carrying safety personnel deployed to guard polio vaccination marketing campaign employees within the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Mahesar stated the incident in Buleli district wounded at the very least 24 individuals, 20 of whom are policemen. He added that two different autos have been additionally broken within the assault.
Javed Akhtar, an official on the authorities hospital in Quetta, advised Al Jazeera that a four-year outdated lady and a girl have been among the many civilian casualties.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the explosion, expressing his grief over the demise of civilians and police official.
“Polio employees are performing their duties to finish this illness with out fearing for his or her lives. Ending polio utterly is among the many high priorities of the federal government,” he stated.
Federal Inside Minister Rana Sanaullah additionally issued a press release, denouncing the assault and asking for an in depth investigation into the incident.
Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Quddus Bizenjo pledged to counter the “cowardly act”. “All these concerned on this incident and their facilitators will likely be introduced beneath the legislation,” he stated.
The TTP later issued a press release, claiming accountability for the assault.
“This assault was carried out after the announcement to finish ceasefire, and was deliberate to take revenge for the demise of Omar Khalid Khorasani. Our assaults will proceed,” it stated.
Khorasani was a senior TTP chief who was killed in a automobile bomb blast in Afghanistan in August.
Earlier this month, the group had focused one other police car in Lakki Marwat metropolis in northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, by which six police personnel have been killed.
Polio vaccination groups in Pakistan have usually been focused by armed attackers. Over the previous decade, almost 100 individuals related to the immunisation marketing campaign have been killed throughout the nation.
There have been at the very least 5 assaults on polio groups this 12 months, the final of which occurred in October, when unknown assailants shot lifeless a policeman offering safety to a polio vaccination well being employee in Balochistan’s Pishin metropolis.
The assaults happened amid an increase in polio circumstances in Pakistan, which is the one nation apart from Afghanistan the place the debilitating neurodegenerative illness stays endemic.
Pakistan reported 20 new circumstances of polio this 12 months – all of them within the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Quetta assault additionally got here as England’s cricket group is touring Pakistan to play their first check collection in 17 years. The primary match of the three-test collection will begin on Thursday in Rawalpindi.
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