Carnage as Pakistan hospital blast kills 10
Saturday, 17 April 2010
QUETTA, Apr 16 (AFP): A suicide bomber blew himself up in the main hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta Friday, killing 10 people and triggering chaos and panic on the wards.
Police said it appeared to be a sectarian attack linked to the nearby shooting of a Shiite banker whose body had been brought to the hospital shortly before the bomb blast.
Quetta, capital of insurgency-hit southwestern Baluchistan province, has seen frequent violence pitting militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities.
City police chief Ghulam Shabbir Sheikh put the death toll at 10, including four policemen and a cameraman with a private television station. More than 30 people were wounded, including at least four journalists and a local MP.
The victim of the shooting was Arshad Zaidi, the son of a local Shiite community leader, who was sprayed with bullets by gunmen on a motorbike as he left the bank.
The blast spread panic through the hospital and send shards of glass flying, while witnesses said the walls of the casualty ward were spattered with blood stains and pieces of human flesh.
Police said it appeared to be a sectarian attack linked to the nearby shooting of a Shiite banker whose body had been brought to the hospital shortly before the bomb blast.
Quetta, capital of insurgency-hit southwestern Baluchistan province, has seen frequent violence pitting militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities.
City police chief Ghulam Shabbir Sheikh put the death toll at 10, including four policemen and a cameraman with a private television station. More than 30 people were wounded, including at least four journalists and a local MP.
The victim of the shooting was Arshad Zaidi, the son of a local Shiite community leader, who was sprayed with bullets by gunmen on a motorbike as he left the bank.
The blast spread panic through the hospital and send shards of glass flying, while witnesses said the walls of the casualty ward were spattered with blood stains and pieces of human flesh.