Blast Near Shia Pilgrims Bus Kills 18 In Pakistan

Islamabad, Jan 22, IRNA – A bomb blast near a bus of Shia pilgrims killed at least 18 people and injured over a dozen more in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Tuesday, police said. Officials said the bus coming from the border town of Taftan came under attack in Mastung district, some 60 kilometers from Quetta, capital of Balochistan. Unconfirmed sources put death toll at 20. Doctors in the region said that 20 people were injured, some of them in critical condition. The injured were transferred to a nearby hospital. Some critical injured were shifted to Quetta. Some witnesses said the bus also caught fire after the blast. The bus was carrying nearly 30 pilgrims who were traveling back from Iran. The security forces, escorting the bus, also fired in the air to keep the people away from the bus. It is the second attack on the pilgrims bus this month. On January 1st, a bomb blast targeted a passenger bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Taftan, killing two people and injuring 31 more. In October 2013, a car bomb hit a paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) van escorting a bus of Shia pilgrims in Dringarh, Mastung, killing two soldiers./end