ISLAMABAD : A powerful blast ripped through a bus of a women’s university in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta today, killing 11 students and injuring 22 others.
The incident occurred within the campus of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University at Brewery Road.
Students and faculty members were in the stationary bus when a bomb planted inside went off.
They were waiting to go home after the end of classes.
Police officials said 11 girls, all students of the university, were killed.
Twenty-two injured people, most of them students, were taken to a nearby hospital.
Doctors described the condition of three of them as serious.
Several girls sustained severe burn injuries as the explosion triggered a fire in the bus.
Footage on television showed flames and black smoke emerging from the bus, which was reduced to a blackened heap of metal. Its roof was blown off and hung over the front.
Security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation.
The blast caused panic in the area and the university was evacuated.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast occurred hours after militants attacked and destroyed a historic 121-year-old building in Ziarat, about 120 km from Quetta, that was used by Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the last days of his life.
A policeman was killed in that attack, which was claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army. (agencies)
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