Three children were among five dead, while several others were injured when a bus carrying students was targeted in a blast in Balochistan’s Khuzdar district on Wednesday morning, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
“In yet another cowardly and ghastly attack planned and orchestrated by terrorist state of India and executed by its proxies in Balochistan, innocent school-going children’s bus was targeted today in Khuzdar,” a statement by the ISPR read.
“As per the initial reports, three innocent children and two adults have embraced martyrdom and multiple children have sustained injuries,” the press release added.
“After having miserably failed in the battlefield, through these most heinous and cowardly such like acts, Indian proxies have been unleashed to spread terror and unrest in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the ISPR said.
“Indian terror proxies are being employed as a state tool by India to foment terrorism in Pakistan against soft targets such as innocent children and civilians,” the statement said.
It noted that India had “failed” in Pakistan’s Operation Bunyanum Marsoos during the recent conflict, and its [proxies] were “being hunted [down] by military and law enforcement agencies”.
“Use of terrorism as a state policy by [the] Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard of [sic] basic human norms,” the ISPR said.
“Planners, abettors and executors of this cowardly Indian sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice and [the] heinous face of India will be exposed in front of the entire world,” the military vowed.
Pakistan Armed Forces, with the support of the brave Pakistani nation, stand “united to uproot Indian sponsored terrorism from Pakistan in all its manifestations”, the ISPR said.
Last month, ISPR Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry accused India of activating its “assets” to intensify terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
He had detailed the arrest of a Pakistani terror suspect allegedly trained by India as “irrefutable evidence” of state-sponsored terrorism directed by Indian military personnel.
On Monday, the ISPR said 12 terrorists of “Indian proxy” outfits were killed by security forces in separate engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Earlier today, Deputy Commissioner Yasir Iqbal Dashti had told Dawn.com that the blast occurred when the school bus was near the Khuzdar Zero Point.
The bodies and the injured were taken to the Khuzdar CMH, from where the seriously injured would be referred to medical facilities in Quetta and Karachi, the DC said.
Police, the Frontier Corps (FC) and other law enforcement agencies’ personnel have reached the site of the incident to collect evidence for an investigation.
While a probe was underway, the DC said preliminary findings indicated that the attack was a suicide blast.
Condemnations
Balochistan government spokesperson Shahid Rind denounced the attack as the “hideous face of Indian state-sponsored terrorism”, as well as a “cowardly and inhumane act”.
In a statement, Rind echoed the ISPR’s stance, saying that India was “creating instability in Balochistan to hide its failures”. He called India’s “state-sponsored terrorism a threat to world peace.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the “explosion inside the bus near Khuzdar Zero Point”.
In a statement, he expressed deep sorrow and grief over the death of four children, and extended his condolences to their families.
“The beasts who target innocent children do not deserve any leniency. The enemy demonstrated barbarity by attacking innocent children,” Naqvi asserted.
“The attack on the school bus is a heinous conspiracy of the enemy to create instability in the country. With the unity of the nation, we will foil every conspiracy,” the interior minister vowed.
Naqvi also prayed for the speedy recovery of the wounded.
Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan also denounced the attack, saying that “terrorism against innocent children was the height of cowardice”.
