Suicide blast targeting school bus kills five in Pakistan’s Balochistan

QUETTA, Pakistan – At least three children were among five people killed when a suicide bomber targeted an army school bus in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, the military said on May 21, in an attack Pakistan blamed on Indian proxies.

Around 40 students were on the bus that was headed to an army-run school and several were injured, said Mr Yasir Iqbal, the administrator of Khuzdar district, where the incident took place.

Pakistan’s military and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif swiftly released statements condemning the violence and accusing “Indian terror proxies” of involvement in the attack. They did not share evidence linking the attack to New Delhi.

India’s Foreign Ministry rejected Pakistan’s accusations of Indian involvement.

“In order to divert attention from its reputation as the global epicentre of terrorism and to hide its own gross failings, it has become second nature for Pakistan to blame India for all its internal issues,” India’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.

Tensions between India and Pakistan remain high after they

agreed to a ceasefire on May 10

. Diplomats have warned the truce is fragile, following the most dramatic escalation of hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades.

Both countries accuse the other of supporting militancy on each other’s soil – a charge both capitals deny. The latest military escalation, in which the two countries traded missiles, was sparked after India accused Pakistan of supporting

militants who attacked dozens of tourists

in the Indian portion of the contested region of Kashmir.

Islamabad denies any involvement.

In the May 21 suicide attack in Balochistan, at least three children and two adults were killed, the Pakistani army said. Local television showed images of three girls from middle school and high school who were killed. 

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which was reminiscent of one of the deadliest militant attacks in Pakistan’s history, when an attack on a military school in the northern city of Peshawar in 2014 killed more than 130 children.

It was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an ultra-radical Islamist group.

Attacks by separatist groups in Balochistan have risen in recent years. The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist militant group, blew up a railway track and took passengers from a train hostage in March, killing 31. REUTERS