Bomb kills six in Pakistan’s Balochistan

An improvised bomb planted on a motorbike killed six people in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province on Monday, police said.

A vehicle carrying personnel from the country’s anti-narcotic force was believed to be the target of the blast in Chaman town, which borders Afghanistan, senior police official Razzaq Cheema said.

“The explosion killed six passersby and wounded 10 others, two of them critically,” he told AFP.

Local police official Masood Khan confirmed the attack and casualties.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but Baluch separatists demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years while the province is also riven by sectarian strife and Islamist violence.

Interior minister Ejaz Shah said in a statement that “such attacks are aimed at spreading fear among the people”.

Mineral-rich Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, is the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.

China is investing in the area under a $54 billion project known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, upgrading infrastructure, power and transport links between its far-western Xinjiang region and Pakistan’s Gwadar port in Balochistan.

Thousands of paramilitary troops carry out security checks and help police in maintaining law and order in restive parts of Pakistan.