Some of the wounded were in critical condition. The blast targeted city’s minority Hazara community, Shia Muslims. There was a store selling potatoes where the explosion has taken place. The bomb appeared to have been set in the potato sacks, police said. It had been no warning the market might be attacked. A Sunni Muslim militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday. Ziaullah Langove, home minister for Balochistan, said it was a suicide attack, confirmed the death toll and added that as many as 48 people were injured.
“We will not bow before terrorists,” Balochistan’s chief minister, Jam Kamal, said in a statement shortly after the bombing. Since 2013, more than 509 Shia Muslims have been killed in a campaign of targeted shootings and bombings in Balochistan province. Every morning, police guard a convoy that leaves the Hazara enclave to visit markets so that Hazaras may stock up on basic necessities. In July last year, 149 people were killed and 186 injured in a suicide attack in the Mastung area south of Quetta.
