Wednesday, 27 April, 2022 I 25 Ramzan, 1443 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XII No 299 I 12 Pages I Karachi Edition
Three Chinese naTionals among four dead in KaraChi blasT KARACHI
a
staff report
N explosion ripped through a van inside a university campus in Karachi on Tuesday, killing three Chinese nationals and their local driver, officials said. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) militant group claimed responsibility for the blast, which took place near a university campus, adding in an email sent to a Reuters reporter that it had been carried out by a woman suicide bomber. The blast was the first major attack against Chinese nationals in Pakistan since last year when a suicide bomber blew up a passenger bus in the Upper Kohistan district
that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese. Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi told reporters the blast killed three foreigners and a local. “The reports we have got is that they’re Chinese,” he said in comments telecast live from the scene of the crime. He said the three Chinese were teachers at Karachi University. The three dead Chinese included the director of the Chinese-built Confucius Institute, which offers Chinese language graduate classes, and two teachers. The fourth fatality was the Pakistani driver of the van, the officials said. “It is too early to say what kind of a blast it is,” police officer Muqaddas Haider told reporters. “We have a confirmation of
four deaths, but I can’t say anything about their identities.” When asked, Haider declined to confirm television reports that the foreigners were among the occupants of the van. Abdul, Khaliq, a police official, said an investigation was underway. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a proscribed militant group active in Balochistan, has targeted Chinese nationals in attacks in the past. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif later in the day, visited the Chinese Embassy here and conveyed his condolence over the death of Chinese nationals in a blast that took place in Karachi earlier in the afternoon.
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BLA CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ATTACK. SAYS ‘MISSION WAS CARRIED OUT BY FIRST FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER’