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QUETTA: A police constable was killed and Deputy Inspector General (investigation) Wazir Khan Nasar, his two minor children and 15 other people injured in a suicide attack on Gulistan Road here on Thursday.
The bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the official residence of the DIG causing a powerful explosion. The house is in the high security cantonment area, near the office of the inspector general and police lines.
“Mr Nasar was the target of the suicide bomber,” Quetta city police chief Dawood Junejo said, adding that his residence and several adjoining houses, including one of another DIG, were destroyed.
No-one claimed the responsibility for the attack and Mr Junejo said it would be premature to say who was behind it. He said the explosion had left a large crater.
According to sources, the bomber’s car hit the main gate of the police officers’ colony, crushed the constable to death and rammed into the house.
Constable Nasar Khan was killed while trying to stop the car at the gate.
DIG Nasar’s daughter and son were among the injured. Nine vehicles parked in the colony were destroyed.
Police officer Abdullah Afridi said about 50kg of explosives had been used in the attack and four mortar shells and a large number of bullets of anti-aircraft gun had been found in the wreckage of the bomber’s vehicle.
Police had found both legs of the bomber in the car, but not his head, he said.
“The explosion broke glass in the offices of the IGP and the special branch, destroyed over two dozen shops in front of the colony, smashed windowpanes of the Tamir-i-Nau College, Government Girls College, Mission Girls School and dozens of houses in a radius of 1km.”
Frontier Corps and Military Police personnel and a large police contingent cordoned off the area.
Police took the DIG and other injured people to the Civil Hospital and Combined Military Hospital.
Everything shook as if it was an earthquake, Khalil Ahmed, who lives 500 metres from the place where the explosion had taken place, told Dawn.
Balochistan Chief Secretary Ahmed Bakhsh Lehri visited the place and Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani went to the CMH and met the injured. He ordered an inquiry said the report should be submitted to him as soon as possible.
He ordered that the injured police officer and his children should be taken to Karachi for treatment.
The chief minister praised the role of Mr Nasar in police actions against anti-social and anti-peace elements.
He said the morale of the injured DIG demonstrated that Balochistan police would bring to justice elements involved in killing innocent people.
Mr Raisani announced a compensation of Rs2 million for the family of the policeman who was killed in the attack.
