Team formed to probe Quetta attack

STRIKE OBSERVED ACROSS BALOCHISTAN 20 VICTIMS LAID TO REST IN TURBAT

QUETTA: The Balochistan government on Wednesday announced the formation of an investigation team to probe into the Quetta Police College carnage which left over 62 people dead and over a hundred others injured on Monday night. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Investigation Aitzaz Goraya will lead the investigation team. DIG Quetta Abdul Razzaq Cheema said, “The support of Punjab’s forensic agency will also be sought.” “The team will visit the site of the carnage and speak to survivors of the tragedy to probe the incident,” Cheema said. The team will soon submit its report to the Balochistan government. Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri earlier chaired an apex committee meeting. Chief Minister’s secretariat sources said that the meeting thoroughly discussed the law and order situation in the province, implementation of the National Action Plan, and the pace of intelligence-based operations in the province. Meanwhile, markets and shopping centres remained closed in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan on the first of a three-day mourning announced after Monday’s carnage. A strike was called by nationalist and religious political parties to mourn those who lost their lives in the attack and pressurise law-enforcement agencies for taking action against the elements involved in the carnage. The traders’ community of Quetta also expressed their support for the strike. “We voluntarily closed our shops to mourn the killing of innocent cadets”, Allah Dad Tareen, a central leader of Anjuman-e-Tajaran Balochistan said. Quetta trade leader, Abdur Rahim Kakar, said all businesses and offices were closed in the city on Wednesday, while marketplaces were deserted. Law offices and business communities elsewhere in some Pakistani cities also closed doors in solidarity. Pakistan’s flag was lowered at half-mast at government buildings and other official institutions. Kakar said there were not enough ambulances and funeral vehicles to transport all the bodies home, so some families were forces to take away their dead on top of passenger vans. Traffic remained thin in Quetta as result of shutterdown. Police and Frontier Corps personnel have been deployed at all sensitive areas of Quetta to avert any untoward incident.