Attack in Pakistan: 20 people killed by an explosive at a Quetta market

At least 20 people were killed, nearly half of whom belong to the Shiite minority of Hazara and 40 others were injured by the blast. Friday a bomb hidden in a sack of potatoes on a market in western Pakistan.

"A big explosion" it was produced early in the Hazarganji district of the unprotected town of Quetta, while a significant number of people were in the market, said a local police spokesman, Fraz Hussain

The improvised explosive device was concealed in a sack of potatoes and caused the death of 20 people and injured 40 others, confirmed the police spokesman Muhammad Ramzan

Hussain then explained that the first investigations indicate that it was an attack on the Hazara Shiite minority, very persecuted in the Asian country.

In statements on local television Dawn, the inspector general of the city, Abdul Razzaq Cheema, also felt likely that it was an attack directed against this minoritywho usually go to the market every day with a police escort of heavily protected areas where they live.

On this occasion, the convoy consisted of "11 vehicles and 55 people," explained Cheema, who said the security forces were protecting them both at the beginning and at the end of the convoy.

"The police closed the market so no one could enter"he insisted.

However, the measure was insufficient, the first investigations indicating that the bomb had been placed before that they have reached the market.

After these statements, Ziaullah Langove, Interior Minister of Baluchistan Province, where the attack took place, rejected the version according to which the Hazaras were the target of the attack., highlighting at a press conference that the attack was not aimed at "a specific community".

The Hazaras are an ethnic minority from Central Asia who often suffer the sectarian attacks of fundamentalist groups. of the Sunni Muslim majority.

In 2013, Three mbadacres in the Shiite and Hazara neighborhoods of Quetta and Karachi killed more than 250 people.

The Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, sentenced toThis is today in a statement and asked that "the injured receive the best possible treatment".

Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, is one of the most most troubled places in Pakistanwith the presence of armed separatist groups, Taliban factions and jihadist groups.

Last July, 149 people died during an electoral attack in that province during the general election campaign, in the worst attack of the country's history.

Terrorist violence has significantly decreased in Pakistan since the launch by the military of an operation in the Northwest Tribal Areas in June 2014, which then spread to the rest of the country.

In this operation, they died 3,500 suspected terrorists, according to the military data not independently verified.