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Quetta:A powerful bomb exploded inside a courtroom in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing a judge and 12 others, police said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack at the District Courts complex in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. Afaq Zahid, an area police chief, said they had transported the dead and injured to a hospital.
"I confirm that that civil judge Abdul Wahid has died in the bomb explosion," he said, adding that officers had also sent the bodies of at least six other people to a hospital. They included lawyers and relatives of some under-trial prisoners.
Abdul Rashid, a lawyer on the site of the blast, said he saw a severed head inside the courtroom, and he speculated it might have been a suicide attack.
Police refused to speculate, saying officers were still investigating. The attack came a day after police announced that they had arrested five suspected militants from the southern city of Karachi and Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, and that the suspects were planning suicide attacks on foreigners and minority Shiite Muslims.
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