QUETTA – A senior police officer survived a suicide explosion outside his house on Thursday morning that injured 13 people, including three children, and killed his chef, who had tried to stop a car laden with explosives from entering the house.
A Toyota Corolla carrying over 60kg of explosives rammed into the boundary wall of the official residence of Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Wazir Khan close to police headquarters and the office of the Balochistan Police inspector general. The explosion killed the police cook Mohammad Nasir and injured 13 people, including two of Khan’s children and the son of another police officer Naeem Kakar.
“The target of the suicide attack was DIG (Investigation) Wazir Khan and his official cook stopped the explosive-laden car that wanted to enter [Khan’s] house, but the vehicle hit the outer wall of the residence,” Quetta police chief Daud Junejo told reporters at the site of the attack. He said five people were injured by shrapnel and they were admitted to the hospital.
The car and the body of the suicide bomber were blown to pieces. The wall of Khan’s residence was badly damaged by the explosion, which was heard for miles. The guard at the main gate of the police bungalows, who was miraculously not even injured in the attack, told reporters that the cook had tried to stop the suspicious vehicle, which had fake government licence plates, but the driver rammed the vehicle into the wall.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing so far, which is the first suicide attack against a senior provincial police officer, as past attacks used remotely-detonated bombs or guns. Previous attacks on policemen have been claimed by banned outfits Lashker-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba.
