Thursday, the 10th of January 2013, was a catastrophic day for the country. Just as the sun made its way out of the clouds to enliven the grey skies gazing down upon the country for the past several days, carnages in Quetta and Swat filled the hearts of countrymen with gloom.
In Quetta, at least 81 people were killed in three massive bomb blasts on Thursday, while another 22 were killed in a bombing in Swat’s Mingora town.
The day also witnessed Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain launching his much touted political drone strike, wherein he said he was uselessly being blamed for being a British national when even the country’s founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had a British passport, a statement that invited mixed reactions.
Moreover, India continued with its aggressive stance in response to the alleged LoC violation by Pakistan Army the other day, raining artillery shells over the Tatta Pani sector and killing one Pakistani soldier. The Indian government also rejected proposals for an independent UN probe into the alleged killing and mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops in Uri sector.
Meanwhile, the country’s financial hub Karachi saw no respite in violence as seven labourers belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were gunned down by six unidentified assailants near Al-Asif Square.
103 killed in bloodbaths in Quetta, swat
Thursday became one of the deadliest days in the country’s history of fighting the war on terror as four bombings, three in Quetta and another in Swat, claimed at least 103 lives and left close to another 150 people injured.
Despite the butchery, no official of the Balochistan government commented or condemned the incidents nor did any minister visit the emergency-ridden hospitals in Quetta to enquire after the injured or oversee rescue operations.
The federal government had also not issued any statement until midnight. As if the 34 killings in bombings in Swat and on an FC checkpost in Quetta earlier in the afternoon were not saddening enough, two more bombings in Quetta later at night killed at least 69 people, including nine police officials, four rescue workers and two journalists, bringing a bloody end to the catastrophic day. The first of Thursday killings came in Quetta when a powerful bomb ripped through the Bacha Khan Chowk in the city, killing 12 people, including two children and an FC official, and injuring 40 others.
The target of the attack was a Frontier Corps checkpost. The blast caused maximum damage as the post was set up in a congested market area and the bomb struck during peak crowd hours.
Several vehicles, including one in use by FC personnel, nearby shops and food stalls were destroyed in the explosion. In Swat sometime later, at least 22 people were killed and more than 65 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Tableeghi Markaz in Mingora.
The blast took place at around 5:20pm in the facility located on Takhta Band Road in Mingora.
Police and an Inter-Services Public Relations spokesman initially termed the explosion as a gas cylinder blast, but Tableeghi Markaz sources, locals and victims of the blast later said that it had in fact been a suicide attack.
“I think it was a suicide attack, I was there, but not in the hall. I saw a man jump into the people and a huge blast occurred,” Altaf, a student at the seminary told Pakistan Today.
The Swat DCO and DPO refused to talk to reporters until availability of details. “We will brief the media after completion of the initial probe into whether it was a cylinder blast or IED explosion,” the DPO said.
And just as TV channels were repeating footages of the two incidents and guessing their nature, news broke out of another bombing in Quetta some time later. The first of two blasts that hit Quetta at night was reported from Rehmatullah Chowk on Alamdar Road, while the second occurred on Airport Road, a nearby area, only minutes after the first.
Several media teams, rescue and law enforcement officials that had rushed to the site of the first explosion fell victim to the second blast.
There was no stopping the rising toll in the twin blasts. It was 10 initially, then 20, 30 and later 40. But that was not the end, with the tally stopping at 69 by the time this report was made at 1am.
The Quetta CCPO Mir Zubair told a press conference late at night that nine policemen had been killed in three bombings.
He said the first of the twin bombings was a suicide attack while the second was a car bombing.
Zubair vowed to continue all efforts to ensure safety of citizens of the city.