3 students, soldiers killed in Pakistan school bus bombing are buried
- Last updated: May 22, 2025 | 19:00
Hundreds of mourners in Pakistan on Thursday attended the funerals of three schoolgirls and two soldiers killed in a suicide bombing that targeted a school bus.
The girl students, aged 10 to 16, were students at the Army Public School in Khuzdar, a city in Balochistan, local authorities said. Another 53 people were wounded, including 39 children, on Wednesday when the bomber drove a car into the school bus in Khuzdar.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest targeting schoolchildren in recent years. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, has claimed most of the previous attacks in the southwestern province.
Both the BLA and the Pakistani Taliban typically refrain from taking responsibility for attacks that result in civilian or child casualties.
The BLA has led a long-running separatist insurgency in Balochistan. The US designated the group a terrorist organisation in 2019.
Pakistan’s military and government blamed rival India for the attack without offering any evidence. India has not commented. India and Pakistan this month fought a four-day conflict before agreeing to a ceasefire.
BLA AND TTP ARE INDIAN PROXIES, SAYS PAKISTANI MINISTER
In a separate development, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that two major terrorist groups operating in Pakistan Indian proxies and Islamabad will present complete evidence to prove New Delhi’s involvement in the attack on a school bus in Khuzdar district of Balochistan that killed three school children and injured several others.
At least six people, including three students, were slain while over 40 others — mostly students — sustained injuries after a bomb targeted the bus near Zero Point in Khuzdar on the Quetta-Karachi highway when it was on its way to drop the students at the Army Public School (APS) in Khuzdar Cantonment.
Asif told a TV channel that there was evidence that the proscribed BLA was working as an Indian proxy. "We will present evidence of India’s involvement. We will corroborate whatever we have claimed,” he said.
The defence minister said that the relation between BLA and India is well-known as their leadership is in New Delhi. "The allegation against us was unsubstantiated but BLA is fighting like an Indian proxy.”
He was referring to the Pahalgam attack last month in occupied Kashmir that killed 26 people, following which India had instantly blamed Pakistan for backing the attackers.
Asif said that the BLA and outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are Indian proxies. They have nothing to do with religion or nationalism, India is financing them and they’re involved in bloodshed here, he said.
The minister said that Pakistan will strike with full force and there will be no leniency, stressing that attacking non-combatants, including school children, was unacceptable.
Asif said Pakistan called for an investigation into the Pahalgam attack, which India didn’t agree to, adding that the world should be informed that the Narendra Modi-led regime was "very irresponsible for using a false incident as a pretext to wage a nuclear war”.
He said Pakistan "will not start nuclear confrontation but cannot stay silent if nuclear devices are thrown at us”. "Pakistan showed restraint, but still India attacked our bases in the dark of the night,” he said.