By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: A powerful bomb explosion tore through a crowded taxi stand near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Thursday evening, killing at least six people and wounding others in a scene of carnage that left body parts scattered amid the debris.
The blast, which officials suspect involved explosives planted outside makeshift shops, came as Balochistan province grappled with a spasm of violence that included a suicide bombing on a passenger convoy and a military operation that left several militants dead.
The attack in Chaman, a bustling border town in Balochistan’s volatile southwest, struck at the heart of daily life. Four people died instantly in the evening rush, and two others who were critically injured later succumbed to their wounds at the district hospital, according to local authorities.
Police and Levies forces — the region’s paramilitary border guards — rushed to the site, cordoning off the area as emergency responders ferried the dead and wounded to medical care. “The explosion took place near makeshift shops,” Assistant Commissioner Chaman Imtiaz Baloch told reporters.
Initial police investigations pointed to a device planted outside the shops at the taxi stand, a hub for cross-border travelers and vendors in this dusty frontier outpost. The Balochistan Home Department swiftly confirmed the casualties in a statement and ordered an inquiry into the incident. It urged citizens to cooperate with investigators, emphasising that “the culprits would be brought to justice.”
Separately, in Khuzdar, another district riven by unrest, troops conducted an intelligence-based operation that ended with the deaths of militants tied to what the military described as an “Indian proxy” outfit known as Fitna al-Hindustan. “During the conduct of operation, own forces effectively engaged the terrorists’ location, and after an intense fire exchange, five Indian-sponsored terrorists were sent to hell,” the ISPR said in a statement released Thursday.
Security personnel recovered weapons, ammunition and explosives from the site of the clash, the military added. “Sanitisation operation is being conducted to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area, as the security forces of Pakistan are determined to wipe out the menace of Indian-sponsored terrorism from the country, and reaffirm the nation’s unwavering resolve to bring the perpetrators of terrorism to justice.”
Thursday’s killing unfolded against a backdrop of surging militant activity across Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and most sparsely populated province, where ethnic Baloch grievances over resource extraction and political marginalisation have fuelled a long-running insurgency.
Balochistan, rich in natural gas and minerals but plagued by underdevelopment, has long been a flash point for separatist groups like the BLA, as well as Islamist militants and cross-border traffickers. The province’s proximity to Afghanistan — where the Taliban seized power in 2021 — has complicated Pakistan’s efforts to secure its frontiers, with accusations flying between Islamabad and New Delhi over alleged support for proxy networks.
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