Baloch liberation army in Pakistan claims responsibility for Quetta train station blast that kills 24, injures 46

Twenty-four people were killed and 46 others injured in a bomb blast at a railway station in Quetta in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday.

The explosion ripped through the provincial capital Quetta’s railway station as passengers gathered on the platform before the scheduled departure of the Jaffar Express to Peshawar.

Pakistan is grappling with a surge in strikes by separatist ethnic militants in Balochistan province in the south and Islamist militants in its northwest.

A decades-old insurgency has destabilized Balochistan and created security concerns for projects trying to access the province’s untapped resources.

Preliminary reports indicate that the explosion took place at the railway station’s booking office.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement emailed to Reuters.

Rescue and law enforcement teams responded immediately, securing the area and transporting the injured and deceased to Civil Hospital Quetta, according to the provincial government spokesperson Shahid Rind.

The BLA seeks independence for Balochistan, a province of about 15 million people that borders Afghanistan to the north and Iran to the west. The BLA is the biggest of several ethnic insurgent groups battling the government, saying it unfairly exploits the province’s rich gas and mineral resources.