Daily Times

Two Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were Monday injured in an explosion on Sariab Road in Quetta during routine patrolling.

The bomb – fitted onto a motorcycle parked on the side of the road – was detonated remotely as they approached the site, said the FC spokesperson. The injured officials have been shifted to the FC hospital.

A large number of security personnel along with a bomb disposal squad reached the site immediately after the explosion. The area was cordoned off and a search operation was initiated.

There has been a surge in violence in Balochistan with several attacks and explosions reported since the start of the year, says a news report.

At least 13 terrorists were killed and seven security personnel, including an officer, martyred during armed attacks on two security forces’ camps in the province’s Naushki and Panjgur districts last week.

Home Minister Mir Zia Langove had said at the time that several threats had been issued in February. “We had threats from Daesh and so-called nationalists,” he had said.

Last month, 17 people, including two policemen, were injured in a grenade attack in Dera Allahyar town of Jaffarabad district.

Prior to that, three Levies Force personnel along with a Bugti clan elder were martyred and eight others injured in twin bomb blasts in Sui area of Dera Bugti.

Over the weekend, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid while making an apparent reference to the recent rise in terrorism incidents and attacks on security forces had said the incidents that had taken place over the past week could further increase. “I do not want to comment on the talks here. The Taliban have intervened but the incidents that occurred in the past week could increase. They could rise [further],” he had said while addressing a ceremony in Rawalpindi on Saturday.