At least 5 hurt in blast near stadium in Quetta; top Pakistani cricketers moved to safety

At least 5 hurt in blast near stadium in Quetta; top Pakistani cricketers moved to safety



NEW DELHI: At least five people were injured in a blast in Pakistan’s Quetta on Sunday in yet another terror strike by the banned militant outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The explosion took place at Quetta Police Lines Area, and the injured, who are mostly policemen, were shifted to the Civil Hospital in the city. Police officials said the site was cordoned off.
Claiming responsibility for the attack, the TTP said that it meant to target security officials in the blast.
The attack comes just days after a deadly suicide bombing by TTP at a mosque in Peshawar claimed over 100 lives.
Shortly after the attack, top Pakistani cricketers, including captain Babar Azam and Shahid Afridi, were moved to safety as they were playing a stadium just a few miles down the road.

The exhibition match of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) at the Nawab Akbar Bugti Stadium was halted for some time following an explosion in the Police Lines area, PTI reported.
“As soon as the explosion happened, as a precautionary measure, the match was stopped and players taken to the dressing room for a while. Later, after the green signal, the match resumed,” the police official said.
The ground was packed for the match.
It is not clear what was the nature of the explosion.
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terrorism, mostly in the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but also in Balochistan and the Punjab town of Mianwali, which borders the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
In November last year, the TTP called off an indefinite ceasefire agreed with the government in June 2022 and ordered its militants to carry out attacks on the security forces.
The TTP, which is believed to have close links to al-Qaida, has threatened to target top leaders of Prime Minister Sharif’s PML-N and foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s PPP if the ruling coalition continued to implement strict measures against the militants.
(With inputs from PTI)





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