Bomb attack kills six in ANP gathering in Quetta

QUETTA, Pakistan – A bomb attack killed at least six people outside a party political meeting in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern city of Quetta on Friday, police said.

The bomb was detonated by remote control as the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) held a public meeting on the outskirts of the capital of oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

“The death toll in the blast has risen to six,” local police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

He said the bomb had been planted on a bicycle, adding that those killed in the attack also included a young girl while six others were wounded.

A police surgeon at a local hospital, Ghulam Haider, also confirmed the new toll.

Baluchistan is one of the most deprived areas of Pakistan where Baluch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the oil, gas and mineral resources in the region.

The province also suffers from Taliban attacks, and is a flashpoint for violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, who account for around 20 percent of the population and which has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s.