File image.
Pakistan has blamed India for a suspected suicide attack on a school bus in the southwestern province of Balochistan on May 21.
The bus was en route to the army public school in the city of Khuzdar when it was reportedly hit by an explosion. The attack claimed the lives of five people – three children, the bus driver and a security guard -, according to local officials, who said that dozens others, including children, were wounded.
Pakistani Police revealed later the initial investigation indicated that the deadly explosion was the result of a suicide bombing.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in Khuzdar. However, Inter-Services Public Relations of Pakistan’s military issued a statement accusing neighboring India of planning and orchestrating the attack.
“Indian terror proxies are being employed as a state tool by India to foment terrorism in Pakistan against soft targets such as innocent children and civilians,” the military said.
“Use of terrorism as a state policy by Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard of basic human norms,” it added.
The military went on to vow that the “planners, abettors and executors of this cowardly Indian sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice and heinous face of India will be exposed in front of the entire world.”
From its side, India’s foreign ministry denied what it called “baseless allegations regarding Indian involvement in unrest in Pakistan”.
The Pakistani accusation came amid high tensions with India. The April 22 attack on Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir sparked a crisis between the two nuclear powers.. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the attack.
The situation escalated on May 7 following deadly Indian retaliatory strikes against Pakistan. The two counties exchanged strikes across the Line of Control, the de-facto borders in the disputed region of Kashmir, as well as over the internationally-recognized border for the next three days. A ceasefire was announced on May 10.
The attack in Khuzdar could lead to a new wave of clashes between the two nuclear powers, if the talks initiated after the ceasefire result in no progress.
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