QUETTA, Pakistan — Eight people including three police officers and a TV cameraman were killed and around 35 wounded Friday in a suspected suicide blast in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta.
"The latest death toll is eight," provincial police chief Qazi Abdul Wahid told AFP.
They included two senior police officers, a police commando and a television cameraman. The wounded included at least four other journalists, he said.
Another police officer, Shams Ullah, said the bomb went off inside a local hospital after the body of a banker killed earlier was brought in.
"It appears to be sectarian violence," he said, adding that the banker belonged to the Shiite community. He was shot dead outside his office.
Wahid said "evidence collected so far indicate it (the blast) was a suicide attack."
Another police officer Mohammad Iqbal also said "it was a suicide attack."
"We have found legs and head from the blast site. We have also found metal pellets, usually stuffed in suicide vests, from the blast site," Iqbal said.
Quetta, capital of insurgency-hit southwestern Baluchistan province, has seen frequent violence involving militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities.
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