QUETTA: The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Saturday registered a terrorism case of Mastung blast that claimed nine lives, including that of five schoolchildren, on Friday.
The blast occurred when an improvised explosive device (IED) planted in a motorbike was denoted near a police mobile van at School-Hospital Chowk in the Majeed Road area, officials said.
The first information report (FIR), registered on the complaint of Mastung City Station House Officer (SHO) Abdul Fateh, said that unidentified terrorists had “targeted innocent children and the public” via the blast.
According to officials said the target of the remote controlled blast was a police vehicle heading to Mastung district hospital to pick up polio vaccinators to escort them to different neighbourhoods as part of the nationwide immunisation drive being run from Oct 28 to Nov 3.
According to the FIR, Bomb Disposal team head Rafiq Shah, after inspecting the incident site, noted that “seven to eight kilogrammes of explosive material and ball bearing” were used in the IED blast.
The police, the FIR added, saw a considerable number of children near the site of the blast. “Workers present in a police van, which was taking a police team to DHO hospital for polio duty, were martyred and injured.”
The FIR detailed that rickshaws, a wall of the Manzoor Shaheed Library and glass windows of the girls’ high school were damaged as a result of the explosion.
It named the eight people who were martyred and 30 who were injured.
The FIR invoked sections 7 and 21(i) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, as well as sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances’ Act 1908.
The case also invoked sections 302, 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amd), 427, 353, 186, and 120B of the Pakistan Penal Code.
