QUETTA: While the militant Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest militant attacks in the country in recent months, officials in Quetta said the carnage was carried out by the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al-Aalmi, a sectarian organisation.

In what appears to be drip-feeding of information by officials, the death toll from the late-night gun-and-suicide assault on the ill-fated Police Training College Quetta kept rising until it stopped in the early hours of Tuesday morning with grim statistics: 62 cadets, an army captain and a paramilitary soldier. Three militants also lay dead with two of them having blown themselves up.

According to officials, over 160 others survived the terror strike with varying nature and degrees of wounds. Hospital sources said that the condition of 12 injured policemen was serious.

•62 cadets, two soldiers killed •Conflicting claims for the attack

“A captain of the Pakistan Army and a subedar of the Frontier Corps succumbed to their injuries at the Combined Military Hospital. They were injured in the gun battle with terrorists in the college,” a senior security official said.

Fron­tier Corps Inspector General Maj Gen Sher Afgun said that communications intercepted by security forces showed that the attack had been carried out by Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al-Aalmi.

Giving details of the assault, Home Minister Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti said that three terrorists wearing suicide vests attacked the college, adding that two suicide bombers blew them up at the barracks of the hostel where cadets were staying.

The third attacker was eliminated by security forces, he said.

Sources said that most cadets lost their lives in the suicide blast which also caused massive destruction in the barracks.

They said that after the bombing a fire broke out and several cadets suffered burns wounds.

The second suicide bomber detonated his vest when security forces cordoned off the area. The third militant also wanted to blow himself up after entering another barracks, but was killed by army commandos. His suicide vest could not explode and was defused by bomb disposal experts.

Security forces rescued around 300 cadets who had been held hostage by the militants. According to sources, the militants broke into the college hostel after killing the police guard posted on the watchtower. The guard put up resistance, but the militants shot him dead before storming the college premises.

They entered the hostel rooms and took around 300 cadets hostage.

They opened fire on the cadets and security guards, triggering a gun battle.

Meanwhile, police and Anti-Terrorism Force commandos arrived and launched the operation against terrorists. Army and FC commandos were called out and they took the command of the operation.

Commander of Southern Command Lt Gen Aamir Riaz, Balochistan IG Ahsan Mehboob and Inspector General Frontier Corps Maj Gen Sher Afgun reached the spot and supervised the operation.

Mr Bugti told reporters that the army and FC commandos, who started the operation at 11pm, finished it at around 3.30am.

Mr Bugti said that over 700 police cadets were present in the hostels when terrorists attacked the college.

Maj Gen Afgun said that terrorists were in contact with their leaders in Afghanistan and getting orders from them. “They were in contact with elements of Lashkar-i- Jhangvi Al-Aalmi,” he said.

The deceased captain and subedar were identified as Roohullah and Muhammad Ali.

Meanwhile, heads of security institutions informed a meeting presided over Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Quetta on Tuesday that the militants involved had come from Afghanistan and during the attack were in contact with their leaders in the war-ravaged country. They said the conversation had been intercepted by intelligence agencies, and played the recoding at the meeting.

Security officials also informed the meeting about the progress in the ongoing investigation into the attack.

A Reuters report said the IS claim included photographs of three alleged attackers. IS’s Amaq news agency published the claim of responsibility, saying three of its men “used machine guns and grenades, then blew up their explosive vests in the crowd”.

A photographer at the scene said authorities carried out the body of a teenage boy who they said was one of the attackers and had been shot dead by security forces.

The Hakeemullah Mahsud faction of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan also claimed responsibility for the attack in an emailed statement, but when members of the group were asked about the statement, they could not confirm it was authentic.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2016