QUETTA: Groups from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi are involved in sectarian violence, bomb blasts, targeted killings and other terrorist and criminal activities in Balochistan, particularly Quetta, according to a senior government official.

“Although some local groups were involved in sabotage acts in Balochistan, we have intelligence information that some gangs of miscreants groups have shifted to Quetta from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi and they are also involved in sectarian violence, bomb blasts and targeted killings here,” Balochistan Home Secretary Asad Gilani said here on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference along with Quetta Commissioner Usman Gul and police chief Arif Nawaz, he said there were threats to Ashura Majalis and processions in sensitive districts of Balochistan, especially Quetta, and a comprehensive security plan had been devised to maintain peace and order.

The official said some evidence had been found of the presence of anti-peace elements and their involvement in preparing a terrorist plot in a seminary on the Eastern Bypass where a bomb had exploded recently.

He said the entry of 69 firebrand religious scholars into Quetta had been banned for Muharram. Both Sunni and Shia speakers were on the list, he said.

Mr Gilani said the Quetta, Bolan, Jaffarabad and Khuzdar districts had been declared highly sensitive and Nasirabad, Jhal Magsi, Zhob and Lasbela sensitive.

He said personnel of the law-enforcement agencies, including the Frontier Corps, police and Levies, would be deployed around Imambargahs and on the routes of the Muharram processions, while the Pakistan Army troops would remain on standby and carry out surveillance by helicopters.

The Quetta commissioner said 200 beds in government hospitals and 40 ambulances would be ready to cope with any emergency.

The regional police chief said installation of security cameras on the routes of the processions had been completed. He said the roads leading to the routes and markets would also be closed on the 7th, 9th and 10th of Muharram.