Quetta suicide blast: Balochistan CM announces three-day mourning
Many of the dead were lawyers and journalists who had earlier gathered to cover a protest.
QUETTA (Dunya News) – Balochistan Chief Minister (CM) Nawab Sanaullah Zehri has announced three-day mourning in the province following the suicide blast in Quetta’s Civil hospital that killed atleast 63 people and injured dozens.
Many of the dead were lawyers and journalists who had earlier gathered to cover a protest over the murder of Balochistan Bar Association president Bilal Anwar Kasi.
Balochistan CM while talking to reporters blamed Indian intelligence agency RAW for all the terrorist activities in the province and said that it is actively involved in destabilising Pakistan by funding the terrorists.
On the other hand, Supreme Court Bar Association President Ali Zafar has declared seven-day mourning by the lawyers fraternity.
While talking in a press conference, he said that lawyers in Balochistan were facing security threats from a long time period but no adequate arrangements were made for their safety.
He urged that the government should also provide security to the lawyers the same way it is given to the judges and politicians.
Ali Zafar also told the reporters that the lawyers fraternity is calling an emergency meeting to create a long-term security strategy for themselves.
The blast is the second deadliest in Pakistan this year so far, after a bombing in a crowded park in Lahore over Easter killed 75.
Pakistani hospitals have been targeted by militants previously.
In 2010 a bomb killed 13 people outside the casualty department of a hospital in Karachi in Sindh province, where victims of an earlier attack were being treated as anxious relatives gathered.
