Bomb kills four at Pakistan political meet: police

A bomb attack killed at least four people outside a party political meeting in Pakistan's troubled southwestern city of Quetta on Friday, police said.

The bomb was detonated by remote control as the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) held a public meeting on the outskirts of the capital of oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

"At least four people, including a young girl, were killed and eight others wounded when the bomb planted on a bicycle went off," local police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

Another local police official, Ameer Khan Dasti, confirmed the casualties.

Baluchistan is one of the most deprived areas of Pakistan where Baluch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the oil, gas and mineral resources in the region.

The province also suffers from Taliban attacks, and is a flashpoint for violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, who account for around 20 percent of the population and which has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s.
 

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