The death toll in the latest terror attack on a Police recruitment facility in Quetta, Pakistan currently stands at 59. Three gunmen stormed a Police training college on Monday night, started firing randomly and detonating bombs.

Talking to the media, Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that the operation against the terrorists has been completed and the affected area has been cleared by security forces who fought valiantly against the terrorists.

Bugti said that 700 police recruits were present at the time of the attack.

IG FC Major General Sher Afghan informed the press that the attackers were getting directions from Afghanistan and the initial investigation suggests that the terrorists were affiliated with Lashkar-e- Jhangvi Al Almi.

Hospital sources said that at least 57 dead bodies have been shifted to different hospitals while 116 people including police recruits and several Frontier Corps (FC) personnel have also been injured in the terrorist attack.

According to sources, three terrorists have been killed and 250 police recruits freed after the attack.

Unknown assailants stormed the hostel of the police training centre and opened fire on recruits.

Image from BBC – Credit EPA

This is how BBC is reporting this breaking story.

A major security operation lasted for hours after the attackers entered the building and opened fire.
The officials believe three militants wearing bomb vests stormed the college. All were killed.
Hundreds of trainees were evacuated from Balochistan Police College as troops arrived to repel the militants.
Pakistan’s army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps took part in the military counter-operation, which Balochistan provincial home minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti said was now over.
Two of the militants died after detonating their bomb vests and one was killed by security forces, he said.
Many of the cadets were killed by the blasts, said Major General Sher Afgan of the Frontier Corps.

 

He blamed a faction of the Lashker-e-Jhangvi militant group and said the attackers “were in communication with operatives in Afghanistan”.
No group has so far said it was behind the attack, which happened late on Monday.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard well after the attack was launched, witnesses said.
More than 100 people, mostly trainees, were injured.
“They were rushing toward our building firing shots so we rushed for safety toward the roof and jumped down in the back to save our lives,” a police trainee told Geo television.
Earlier in the day, two customs officers were shot dead and another critically wounded in Surab, south of Quetta.
Quetta is the provincial capital of Balochistan, where separatist groups and Islamist militants have both carried out similar attacks in the past.

Many in India and in the rest of the world often forget that Pakistan is more at the receiving end of terror attacks than most other countries. It is the result of dangerous mixing of irrational religious beliefs with politics. The lesson from the sorry state of that country is religion should always be kept as far away from politics as possible.