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Arab News
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Death toll from school bus bombing in Pakistan's Balochistan rises to 10
ISLAMABAD: The death toll from last week's bomb attack on a school bus in Pakistan's Balochistan province has risen to 10 as two more schoolchildren have died during treatment, Pakistani state media reported on Monday. Balochistan has been the site of an insurgency for decades, though it has intensified more recently, with groups like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) carrying out high-profile attacks on civilians and security forces. Wednesday's bombing killed five Pakistanis, including three school-goers, when their bus was en route to an army-run school in Balochistan's Khuzdar district. Three more students died later during treatment. 'Two more students, Sheema Ibrahim and Muskan, have also succumbed to their injuries taking the [children's] toll to eight,' the Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported on Monday. Pakistani civilian and military officials have blamed the May 21 bombing on India. On Friday, Pakistan's Interior Secretary Khurram Muhammad Agha described the Khuzdar bombing as an attack on 'our values, our education and on the very fabric of our society.' 'Initial findings confirm that this attack is in continuity of a broader pattern of violence sponsored by India through Fitna Al-Hindustan (FAH) operating under the tutelage and the patronage of the Indian intelligence agency R&AW,' he said, without offering any proof to link India to the attack. New Delhi has distanced itself from the bombing, attributing such acts of violence to Pakistan's 'internal failures.' The FAH comprises several separatist groups and independently operating cells in the insurgency-hit southwestern Pakistani province, according to Pakistani officials. These cells, after having suffered immense casualties in past few years, have now resorted to hitting 'soft targets.' The rise in deaths from Khuzdar bomb attack comes a day after Pakistan's army said it had killed nine 'Indian-sponsored' militants in three separate operations in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Relations between Pakistan and India touched a new low last month, when gunmen killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir in an attack India blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad has denied complicity and called for a credible, international investigation into it. Pakistan and India have a bitter history and have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The nuclear-armed archfoes traded missile and drones strikes as heightened tensions spiraled into a military four-day conflict this month that ended with a United States-brokered truce on May 10. Pakistan has mostly blamed India for supporting a separatist insurgency in Balochistan, a southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan. It also accuses it of backing the Pakistani Taliban who regularly carry out attacks in the country's northwestern and other regions. New Delhi denies the allegations.
Business Recorder
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Govt vows decisive action against ‘India-sponsored' terrorists after Khuzdar attack
Interior Secretary Captain (retd) Khurram Muhammad Agha on Friday vowed a 'decisive' response to the recent Fitna al-Hindustan terrorist attack in Khuzdar, warning that the perpetrators would fail in their objectives. Speaking at a joint press conference with Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the interior secretary strongly condemned the attack and reaffirmed the government's unwavering support for the families affected by the tragedy. Agha said that initial investigations had revealed involvement of Fitna al-Hind in the attack, calling it a continuation of India's subversive strategy in the region. 'The attack on innocent children in Khuzdar was not just an act of terrorism, but a direct assault on Pakistan's traditions and educational values,' he said. Addressing the media, DG ISPR said that India had become the epicentre of destabilising the region, adding that the neighbour was also behind the attack in Balochistan's Khuzdar. Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said that Indian state-sponsored terrorism against Pakistan has been ongoing since the inception of the country. He said in 2009, the Pakistani government had handed a dossier of irrefutable evidence to the then Indian prime minister. 'The publicly disclosed documents released in 2010 are part of history.' In 2016, the world saw another ugly face of India-sponsored terrorism in Balochistan in the name of Kulbushan Jadhav, a serving Indian naval officer,' the DG ISPR said. The army spokesperson said that the Khuzdar attack was not an attack on a bus alone, 'it was an attack on our values, on our education and the very fabric of our society'. The Ministry of Interior, in close cooperation with the provincial authorities and the law enforcement agencies, are looking into all of this dastardly attack, he said. He said initial findings confirm that this attack is a continuation of a broader pattern of violence sponsored by India through Fitna al Hindustan, operating under the tutelage and intelligence of the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). 'Having miserably failed in Operation Sindoor, the terror proxies of Hindustan have been tasked to accentuate their heinous attacks of terrorism in Balochistan and elsewhere.' He added that Pakistan and its people, particularly in Balochistan, reject this nefarious design, adding that the state has the capacity and the will to dismantle these networks and bring the perpetrators and their handlers to justice. 'Such actions will have consequences, ' the DG ISPR said.
