Suicide attack targets Raisani’s convoy

[Pak_Army]

QUETTA: A suicide attack targeted the convoy of the top elected official in Pakistan’s southern province of Balochistan on Tuesday, killing one person but leaving the chief minister unhurt, police said.

The bomber detonated alongside the motorcade of Nawab Aslam Raisani in Quetta, the capital of a province where violence connected to a separatist insurgency and Taliban violence has surged this year.

“It was a suicide bombing. The convoy of the chief minister was damaged,” Quetta administration official Nasim Lehri told a local television channel.

Police said one man was killed and a number of people wounded as Raisani, an ethnic Baloch, was being driven from his home to the provincial assembly.

“The chief minister was the target, but he remained unhurt,” senior police official Salim Lehri told AFP.

“One of the escort cars was damaged and some officials were wounded.”

The convoy was passing a railway crossing in Sariab Road at the time and an unexploded hand grenade was also found nearby, Lehri said.