QUETTA, Pakistan: The death toll from a suicide bombing targeting a school bus in the Khuzdar district of Pakistan’s Balochistan province has risen to eight after two more injured students succumbed to their wounds.
The students were among those targeted in a suicide bombing reportedly carried out by Indian-sponsored terrorists.
Security officials condemned the attack, describing it as a “cowardly act” planned on Indian soil.
They accused the Indian state and its proxies of being responsible for the deaths of innocent schoolchildren.
The attack took place on May 21, when a blast struck a school bus near Zero Point along the National Highway in Khuzdar.
The explosion initially killed four children and a teacher, while injuring 38 others.
Indian-sponsored terrorism
“In yet another cowardly and ghastly attack planned and orchestrated by [the] terrorist state of India and executed by its proxies in Balochistan, [an] innocent school-going children[’s] bus was targeted today in Khuzdar,” Pakistan military’s media wing said in a statement.
In the statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that after having miserably failed on the battlefield, through these most heinous and cowardly acts, Indian proxies have been unleashed to spread terror and unrest in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Having failed in Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos and being hunted by military and law enforcement agencies, the ISPR said, these 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] use of terrorism as a state policy by the Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard for basic human norms,” the ISPR noted.
UNSC condemnation
Earlier, the UN Security Council strongly condemned the “heinous and cowardly” terrorist attack on a school bus in Khuzdar in Pakistan’s province of Balochistan and called for bringing the culprits to justice.
“This reprehensible act of terrorism resulted in the grievous loss of at least 6 Pakistani nationals, including 4 school-going children, along with 53 injured, 39 of them children,” a press statement issued by the 15-member Council said.
“The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and the people of Pakistan, and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured.”
