At least 52 killed and more than 100 injured in a bomb blast at a remote Sufi shrine in Pakistan

ISIS has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in a Sufi shrine in Baluchistan with at least 52 killed and more than 100 others injured - many of the victims were women and children. Devotees were at the time participating in a ceremony of devotional dance session, which is held daily before dusk, when the blast occurred.
The shrine of the Sufi saint Shah Noorani is located some 750-Km south of Quetta, the provincial capital of restive southern Balochistan province. The shrine sits on a hill which devotees have to climb for half an hour as there is no regular road.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 13 November 2016.

The shrine is revered and visited both by minority Shia and Sunni Muslims, but militant groups like the Taliban and Islamic State (IS) consider the practice against Islam. IS has claimed responsibility for the attack saying that a suicide bomber had targeted the shrine and had killed around 35 people and injured 95 others.
At the time of the attack, there wee about 600 people at the shrine - many of the devotees traveled to the site from Karachi during weekends.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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Gunmen shoot dead 20 laborers in a dam construction site in Balochistan

#Balochistan #Turbat #Pakistan Unidentified gunmen have shot dead at least 20 laborers and left three injured at the construction site of a dam in Pakistan's restive southwestern Balochistan province. The incident happened in Gobdan area of the Turbat district. This is believed to be one of the most volatile parts of Balochistan which is a region where nationalist and separatist Baloch groups have been fighting against the state for over a decade demanding maximum autonomy.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 11 April 2015.

There are doubts about how the killing occurred. One version is that militants opened fire indiscriminately at the laborers while they were sleeping. Another version is that the laborers were lined up and shot at point blank range. It has also been reported that the eight paramilitary troops who were guarding the laborers had fled the scene when faced with such a large number of armed attackers.
None of the dead were from Balochistan but, 16 were from Pakistan's Punjab province and four from Sindh. Obviously, the targets were the workers from Pakistan. It seems after committing the killing, the attackers fled on motorcycles. A separatist group, Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) has apparently taken responsibility for the attack.

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