outside a polling station in Quetta's Eastern Bypass area on Wednesday, officials said.Police officials and civilians both are among the dead. Eight of the maimed are at death's door.
A statement issued by Quetta police said a jacket wallah went
kaboom!after he was stopped from entering the Tameer-e-Nau Education Complex school, which is serving as a polling station. Earlier reports had said the target of the blast was a police van.
"(The bomber) was trying to enter the polling station. When police tried to stop him he went
kaboom!," a local administration official in Quetta, Hashim Ghilzai, told AFP. Police officials rushed to the site and launched a probe into the blast.
The kaboom occurred outside the school in Quetta's 'sensitive' NA-260 constituency where polling was taking place. A number of murder incidents and bombings have taken place in this area over the last 15 years.
The blast has left 31 people dead and more than two dozen people injured, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) CTD Aitzaz Ahmed Goraya said quoting the latest figures.
A station house officer (SHO) injured in the attack is in a critical condition, DawnNewsTV reported. An emergency has been imposed at the Civil Hospital.
Polling was halted at the school after the blast, but it resumed after a few hours.