Blast in Quetta

[DaRk WaVe]

12 arrested in Quetta blast investigation

QUETTA: Police on Saturday conducted raids in different parts of Quetta where 62 people were killed and 185 injured in a suicide attack on an Al-Quds day procession a day earlier.

The police have arrested 12 suspects so far in the case, while an FIR of the accused in the blast case has also been registered at the City Police Station.

Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani has formed a judicial tribunal to investigate the attack. He has also formed a ministerial commission to review law and order.

Meanwhile, a complete shutter-down strike is being observed in the city. The call for the strike was announced by the Shia Conference.

Traders Union and political parties in the city are fully participating in the strike. All markets, educational institutions and other businesses are closed across the city.

Heavy contingents of police and FC have been deployed around Quetta to avoid any untoward incident.

62 killed in suicide attack on rally

At least 62 people were killed and over 150 injured in a suicide attack on an Al Quds rally, followed by indiscriminate firing. Soon after the bomber blew himself up, heavily armed men opened fire as a result of which dozens received bullet injuries.

Banned religious outfit Lashkar-i-Janghvi claimed responsibility for the attack and warned of more attacks if a ban was not imposed on processions and demonstrations of Shia organisations. Later the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also claimed responsibility for the same attack. The incident of the blast and firing took place as the procession, led by the Imamia Students Organisation to mark Al Quds Day – an annual event opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem, reached Mezan Chowk. Hundreds of people took part in the rally that the police tried to stop near Mali Bagh on McChangey Road owing to security concerns. The younger participants however pushed their way further by removing police barricades and it was when the procession reached Mezan Chowk that the suicide bomber detonated the explosives.

“Around 20 people caught fire as a result of the blast while human flesh spread all over the ground,” TV cameraman Shahid Mukhtar who suffered multiple injuries to The Express Tribune. “I don’t know what happened, everything was covered with thick smoke,” he said. The driver of Express News’ DSNG van said that a group of armed men opened indiscriminate fire soon after the blast and tried to set the DSNG van on fire. “No security official was present to tackle the situation,” he said while another eyewitness, Saqib, said that 15 people suffered bullet injuries.

Enraged participants of the rally burnt several vehicles, motorcycles and shops in Mezan Chowk and adjoining areas where the police and Frontier Crops reached after a delay of an hour. There was also an exchange of fire between the armed men and security personnel during which two passersby received injuries. Fund collecting camps set up by different organisations for flood victims were also burnt down.

According to an eyewitness, around 20 people died after receiving bullet injuries. “We received 10 bodies and 28 injured while a large number of injured have been referred to the CMH,” Medico Legal Officer at the Sandeman Hospital said. Up to 60 bodies and 159 injured were rushed to the CMH while four bodies were sent to the BMC.

Talking to journalists, Provincial Police Officer, Malik Mohammad Iqbal said that the police had tried to stop the rally due to a security concern but the participants refused to follow instructions. He said the police had also issued a warning about a suspected attack. The suicide bomber is believed to be between 25 and 30 years old, as guessed by his head that was found after the attack.

Mohammad Sarwar, a driver working for AAJ TV is also among the dead while seven others belonging to the media suffered injuries. Express News reporter Irshad Mastoi, Express News cameraman Shahid Muktiar, Samaa TV’s Noor Elahi Bugti and Ejaz Raisani, ARY TV’s Mustafa Tareen, Geo TV’s Imran Muktiar and Dawn News’ Fateh Shakir were also among those hurt.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

These 'uneducated & imprisoned women' could have traveled alone from kandahar to kabul, without the fear of been raped or robbed in talib's rule.

You do that in educated and democratisized pakistan, take a trip from islamabad to karachi by car alone, than see what happens.

Even the remains of ur car wont be found.

Nothing happened to the women precisely because under Taliban rule the women had already been 'raped, brutalized and subjugated' before they had to travel - what was left for criminals?

The treatment the Taliban meted out to women everyday was far worse than the far more remote possibility of a women suffering at the hands of criminals in Pakistan today.

Every single woman under Taliban control was brutalized and oppressed - not even close to every single woman in Pakistan today (with all its flaws and Taliban ideology adherents) suffers the same as women under the Taliban.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

all of the taliban systematizers must live under their beloved thugs, I am sure these Pak-talibs living abroad can't even spend a week under them

Some of these Pakistani Taliban sympathizers could indeed live under the Taliban, for they would like nothing better than to see women treated like animals, kept illiterate, brutalized and at the mercy of men.

These people are the ones that go on to beat their wives, sell their daughters and murder their female relatives over some twisted view of 'honor'.

These are the same people who openly defend black laws discriminating against people of other faiths, and advocate killing them, and would participate in lynchings and murders of people from other sects/faiths.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

12 arrested in Quetta blast investigation

Likely of no use - The Terrorist Taliban leadership is more than likely hiding in North Waziristan under the protection of Gul Bahadur, in blatant violation of a deal made with the NW tribes and leadership to not harbor terrorists.

I sincerely hope the floods do not delay the planned NW operation for too long.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

Likely of no use - The Terrorist Taliban leadership is more than likely hiding in North Waziristan under the protection of Gul Bahadur, in blatant violation of a deal made with the NW tribes and leadership to not harbor terrorists.

I sincerely hope the floods do not delay the planned NW operation for too long.

So if we start operation against the sympathizers of Afghan Taliban, Mullah Umar, Hikmatyar etc, than how will we retain an influence in Afghanistan? India has an influence on Tajiks etc but where will we end up?

 

[Cheetah786]

So if we start operation against the sympathizers of Afghan Taliban, Mullah Umar, Hikmatyar etc, than how will we retain an influence in Afghanistan? India has an influence on Tajiks etc but where will we end up?

GOP policies made by uneducated Arat influenced Pakistani politicians are bringing such good results all over Pakistan and world we should continue that path excellent idea.

We wont have the Pakistan as eventually shias and other oppressed groups will start to fight back guess what that means its called civil war but hey we will have influence over Afghanistan.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

So if we start operation against the sympathizers of Afghan Taliban, Mullah Umar, Hikmatyar etc, than how will we retain an influence in Afghanistan? India has an influence on Tajiks etc but where will we end up?

I think the cost of retaining influence through the Taliban is quite clearly too high a price for Pakistan to pay. Pakistan has a few avenues to exercise influence over Afghanistan, primarily trade and commerce, especially with projects such as the TAPI and power lines, and facilitating Afghan transit trade.

The Pakistani military leadership has already indicated that it is quite amenable to a 'neutral Afghanistan. The involvement of regional players such as Russia in these projects, along with continued NATO interest in seeing the region stabilize, would IMO assist in minimizing any inimical role, WRT Pakistan, the Indians may want to play in Afghanistan.

What Pakistan does not want to see is for NATO to leave without the Afghan insurgency resolved, and then find that it has enemies in both Kabul and the Taliban. The desire to see Afghanistan and NATO enter into negotiations with some sections of the Taliban is in order to facilitate an environment in which the insurgency is brought under control, given the concerns that NATO will not stick it out over the long run. Both cases - a complete defeat of the Taliban or/and a negotiated end to the insurgency - will have a significant impact on the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

I think the cost of retaining influence through the Taliban is quite clearly too high a price for Pakistan to pay. Pakistan has a few avenues to exercise influence over Afghanistan, primarily trade and commerce, especially with projects such as the TAPI and power lines, and facilitating Afghan transit trade.

The Pakistani military leadership has already indicated that it is quite amenable to a 'neutral Afghanistan. The involvement of regional players such as Russia in these projects, along with continued NATO interest in seeing the region stabilize, would IMO assist in minimizing any inimical role, WRT Pakistan, the Indians may want to play in Afghanistan.

What Pakistan does not want to see is for NATO to leave without the Afghan insurgency resolved, and then find that it has enemies in both Kabul and the Taliban. The desire to see Afghanistan and NATO enter into negotiations with some sections of the Taliban is in order to facilitate an environment in which the insurgency is brought under control, given the concerns that NATO will not stick it out over the long run. Both cases - a complete defeat of the Taliban or/and a negotiated end to the insurgency - will have a significant impact on the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan.

Economic help and trade facilities are of top notch against Indian influence in Afghanistan. India can do whatever she want but we have an edge i.e. share borders. We can also provide port services to the Afghans. However, first we need an effective government in Afghanistan. AND in Pakistan too.

I hope insurgents try to understand the geo political situation. I do not like to see people being killed-- Hope the insurgents try to understand!!!!!

 

[jha]

So if we start operation against the sympathizers of Afghan Taliban, Mullah Umar, Hikmatyar etc, than how will we retain an influence in Afghanistan? India has an influence on Tajiks etc but where will we end up?

This is one helluva issue...I'll wait for answers from pakistani members..

 

[SekrutYakhni]

We need no killing anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!
Americans, Talibs and other parties; we know that you guys have differences and some of them are legitimate but make this world a better place!!!!! Coexistence!!!

 

[Irfan Baloch]

This is one helluva issue...I'll wait for answers from pakistani members..

utter shock is the response
I hope he didnt mean what seems to us all

stretegic depth be damned if all we are left with is broken bones and spllatered flesh and blood in our streets of our civilians at the hands of these savages

 

[SekrutYakhni]

utter shock is the response
I hope he didnt mean what seems to us all

stretegic depth be damned if all we are left with is broken bones and spllatered flesh and blood in our streets of our civilians at the hands of these savages

Well, I was a bit open to ask the question. It is good to ask openly and I got my answer from AM.

 

[Icarus]

Ego boy, I'm still waiting for those "Pictures of Uncle Sam in Afghanistan" that "Won't leave me with anywhere to hide"..........I'd appreciate if those pictures were brought forward before my great grand children have grand children.................Appreciate it.

 

[Prometheus]

RAW, Mossad behind Quetta blasts: Pak daily

Islamabad: India's spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel's Mossad, through their "strong network in Afghanistan", were behind the suicide attack on a Shia procession in Quetta that killed 73, an editorial in a Pakistani paper said on Sunday.

"The suicide attack on the Yaum-al-Quds (Jerusalem Day) in Quetta appears to be a carefully considered conspiracy and it must be borne in mind that both the Indian agency RAW and Israeli agency Mossad have set up a strong network in Afghanistan. It is through this network only that the Quetta rally was targeted," the editorial in the Nawa-i-Waqt said.

"It was thus that after the devastation of the floods, a new chapter of a tragedy began in Baluchistan," it added.

At least 73 people were killed and more than 150 injured in a blast that ripped through a Shia procession near Meezan chowk in Quetta on Friday. The banned Sunni radical group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The editorial cited informed sources as saying that preliminary investigations into the explosions outside Karbala Gamay Shah in Lahore on Wednesday in which 35 people were killed, also indicated a conspiracy by "external agencies" and clues had been found that suggested "forces inimical to Pakistan" had joined hands to start a new campaign of destabilisation.

It said all political parties and leaders of Pakistan must take serious note of these incidents, which are a series of a "new wave of tension and terrorism" and acknowledge that their "wrong political policies" were responsible for the difficult phase the country is passing through.

Noting that former president Pervez Musharraf had cited the growing network of Indian agents in Balochistan striving to misguide the population and turn them against Pakistan, it said the present dispensation is not ready to admit to the possibility of a "foreign hand" in even the biggest terrorist outrages happening in the province.

"A move to restore rights to the people of Balochistan and to bring them in the mainstream was begun but fell hostage to the political tug-of-war between various parties and ultimately petered out. Meanwhile Indian and Israeli agents are working day and night in Balochistan to foment trouble, under the clear supervision of America, which is also helping them in this endeavour," it said, calling on all politicians to get their act together and seriously take up the challenges facing the nation.RAW, Mossad behind Quetta blasts: Pak daily

 

[Hulk]

RAW, Mossad behind Quetta blasts: Pak daily

.... Shorten in interest of space

I think one should read the news and then look at your avatar to get to know how it feels.
We are in complete control of Pakistan it seems but still cannot get simplest things done. Like get HS and Dawood. So while we can do lot of these things but cannot do easier things.