2 killed in suicide blast near Gaddafi stadium in Pak
31 May 2015 11:12 PM GMT
Security concerns were raised as the touring Zimbabwe team is the first international cricket team to
visit Pakistan since the Taliban attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 near the same stadium here that injured six team members.
During the day-night match between Pakistan and Zimbabwe here, the bomber blew himself up while riding a rickshaw at 9 PM near Kalma Chowk less than a kilometre away from the cricketing venue.
Four persons were initially rushed to a nearby hospital where sub-inspector Abdul Majid was pronounced dead.
A total 10 people were injured in the attack.
Soon after the blast, the Pakistan Cricket Board issued a statement, saying it was a “power transformer blast” that was caused by malfunctioning. Police cordoned off the area and no one, including the media, was allowed to enter the blast site.
Senior police officials kept denying it was a suicide blast.
“The gas cylinder fixed in the auto rickshaw was exploded. Forensic samples had been collected from the site to determine the nature of the explosion,” Lahore police chief Amin Wains told reporters.
There were two persons killed in the explosion, he said, adding that it would be premature to say that it was a “suicide attack”.
Militants kill 22 abducted bus passengers
Unidentified militants in military uniform shot dead at least 22 passengers after storming two Karachi-bound buses in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, triggering widespread protests from Pashtuns.
Suspected to be Baloch separatists, 20-25 militants stopped the buses ferrying over 30 passengers, mostly Pashtuns, in southwestern Mastung district on Friday night when they were heading to Karachi from Quetta and Pishin. According to a survivor, the gunmen asked the passengers to come out and they obeyed the instructions, thinking they were military personnel. The gunmen kidnapped about 30 passengers and later killed at least 22 of them, officials and media reports said.
Two of the militants were on Saturday killed in a massive operation mounted by the Frontier Corps (FC) and Levies personnel in the Khadkochay area of the Mastung district to hunt down the gunmen and recovered six passengers from the mountains, an FC official said.
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