From Monsters and Critics.com

South Asia News
At least 3 killed as protests continue in Pakistan province
By DPA
Aug 29, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Quetta - At least three people were killed and another eight injured in a bomb explosion in Pakistan's restive south-western Balochistan province on Tuesday, officials said.

'The explosion took place in a road side hotel in Hub town, 580 kilometres south of Balochistan's provincial capital Quetta,' a local police official Mir Hidayatullah told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.

The official did not give further details including size and origin of the bomb and said technical data was being collected from the site of the explosion.

Hidayatullah, however, feared the death toll might rise in view of the damage caused by the blast in the hotel where more than 50 people were present.

The incident came hours after thousands of mourners in Pakistan's south-western Balochistan province Tuesday turned violent and torched two banks and a dozen shops after attending the funeral prayers of separatist tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti, killed in a weekend military operation.

After the prayers held in Ayub stadium in the provincial capital Quetta, people ignored pleas for calm and turned violent, setting fire to two banks and some 15 shops in the area.

Thousands of riot police fired teargas shells to disperse the crowd, which spread all around the stadium. The rioters blocked roads with burning tyres.

At least two police officials sustained injuries when protesters pelted stones at security forces deployed outside the stadium.

There were also reports of sporadic violence from some other parts of Quetta.

Bugti was killed Saturday when the cave where he and his commanders were holed up collapsed during an exchange of heavy fire with the paramilitary forces in the Kohlu district bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

Officials were still searching for Bugti's body in the rubble amid allegations that the government had already recovered it and shifted it to Islamabad.

'The regime now claims that it is digging to find Bugti's remains. This is widely believed to be a subterfuge as there is no body there to be found,' veteran politician and a colleague of the slain leader, Sherbaz Khan Mazari alleged in a letter faxed to English daily Dawn.

Leaders of Bugti's Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) also alleged that the government was already in possession of the body.

Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Mohammad Yousuf, however, denied the allegations and promised to hand over Bugti's body to relatives as soon as it was recovered.

Bugti was considered as the kingpin in a growing Baloch nationalist insurgency for greater provincial autonomy for the impoverished but mineral rich province.

At least three people were killed and 12 injured in clashes between police and protesters in Quetta on Sunday during which several government buildings were also attacked with gunfire.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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