ISLAMABAD
At least 24 people have been killed and dozens injured in a huge blast in a busy fruit market in the capital Islamabad on Wednesday morning, police said.
A secular Baluch separatist organization, the United Baluch Army, has claimed the responsibility for the attack. A purported spokesman for the group told media that the blast was in retaliation for a military operation in the Khuzdar and Kalat districts of southwestern Baluchistan province on Monday which killed over 30 militants.
"Many bodies have so far been brought to the hospitals; 42 of the injured look to be in a critical condition," a police chief, Sultan Azam Temori told reporters.
Hundreds of people were buying and selling in the sprawling fruit market, which serves residents of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, when the blast occurred. The blast was heard within a radius of five kilometers.
Rescue workers told reporters that they had shifted 14 bodies and 30 injured to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, while some of the injured were moved to Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi.
The bomb was planted under fruit baskets, and around five kilograms of explosive material was used in the blast, Temori said, adding: "For sure, this is an act of terrorism but further details can be shared after detailed investigations," he said.
"It was a deafening blast," Gulrez Ahmed, a commission agent, told the Anadolu Agency. He was around 200 meters away from the site when he heard the explosion as giant plumes of flame and clouds of thick smoke wafted upward.
"It was an inferno-like scene as pieces of human flesh, blood-soaked shoes, and clothes were strewn about the site," he said.
The blast has occurred just a day before a ceasefire between the Taliban and security forces is due to end. The country has been relatively peaceful over the last month with a reduction in Taliban-related violence due to the ceasefire.
The Baluch group has also claimed responsibility for train blast on Tuesday in Baluchistan which killed 17 passengers.
