A Police Training Centre was attacked by militants in Quetta, Pakistan late on Monday night. More than 60 cadets besides three militants have died and 118 people are injured, making it one of the deadliest strikes in the country this year.
The Balochistan Police College which is 20 km from the province capital began at around 11.10 pm Monday night. As reported by Indian Express, attackers entered the hostels of the training centre from the front gate and opened fire, taking some hostages and injuring 118 cadets.
“44 shaheed 118 inj #QuettaAttack (sic),” Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of Balochistan province tweeted. Bugti had earlier told reporters that the attack had been carried out by three terrorists, cycling back on an earlier estimate by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) of “five to six terrorists”.
He also reported that two militants were suicide bombers and blew themselves up, one was killed in the fire exchange with security forces. According to the initial reports, the three terrorists are believed to be from the Al-Alimi faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban.
Policeman who was guarding the only entry point of the college was among those gunned down. Bugti said the injured people, mostly police cadets and security personnel, had been shifted to the Civil hospital, Bolan Medical College hospital and Military hospital in Quetta. “The condition of some is critical,” he said. He said there was a Frontier Corps official and captain among the injured.
Meanwhile, 200 of the 600 cadets, present in the centre’s hostel, have been rescued. Five or six terrorists attacked the training centre’s hostel in Sariab Road at around 11.30 pm, according to reports by the Dawn. The Police Training College is located at sarib Road in Quetta, Pakistan.
The attack came a day after separatist gunmen for the Baloch Liberation Army on a motorcycle shot dead two coast guards and a civilian in coastal town of Jiwani near the Gwadar port in the same province.
In August, a suicide bombing at the Civil hospital in Quetta killed 73 people, most of them lawyers. A splinter group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan as well as the IS claimed responsibility for carrying out the attack.
