Hours after Pakistan made “baseless allegations” of Indian involvement in a bus bomb blast in Balochistan earlier in the day, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Wednesday slammed Islamabad for blaming India for all its internal issues. Five people, including three children and two adults, died and around 38 more were injured, many of them critically, in a blast targetting a bus carrying children of Army Public School (APS) in Balochistan’s Khuzdar area on the Zero Line at Karachi-Quetta Highway, on Wednesday. “India rejects the baseless allegations made by Pakistan regarding Indian involvement with the incident in Khuzdar earlier today. India condoles the loss of lives in all such incidents,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries on the allegations made by Pakistan. “However, in order to divert attention from its reputation as the global epicentre of terrorism and to hide its own gross failings, it has become second nature for Pakistan to blame India for all its internal issues. This attempt to hoodwink the world is doomed to fail,” Jaiswal added.
The attack, suspected to be a planted Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast, targetted an APS bus carrying dozens of school children. The blast completely destroyed the bus, raising concerns of more casualties. Local authorities in Khuzdar confirmed the attack, stating that the injured have been shifted to Central Military Hospital (CMH) in Khuzdar for treatment, while authorities have cordoned off the area to collect evidence from the scene. Instead of initiating immediate relief measures and launching a search operation to nab people behind the deadly attack, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) began targetting India immediately after the incident. Analysts reckon that Pakistan, currently reeling from massive defeat and decisive Indian strikes conducted during Operation Sindoor, is still making no efforts to focus its energies on setting its own house in order. Over the last many decades, several international organisations have documented how selective but extremely opaque and high-handed use of force by Pakistani authorities has affected civilian populations on a large scale in the provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh where locals are routinely abducted and unlawfully killed. The current and past armed conflicts in the northwest of Pakistan have displaced millions as the people of Balochistan, amongst other provinces, have been waging for decades a bitter and brave struggle against their daily abuse and torture.
