An explosion in Pakistan has left at least 50 people dead and more than 50 injured, according to police.
The explosion occurred on Friday as people gathered to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad close to a mosque in the Balochistan province in the southwest.
State of emergency has been proclaimed in Balochistan by authorities. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
An unrelated blast at a mosque outside of Peshawar City is being reported in the meantime.
The exact number of deaths is unknown, but according to local media, many people may still be trapped beneath the debris.
Footage from the scene in the Balochistan city of Mastung showed the injured being rescued by emergency responders and locals.
Sarfraz Bugti, Pakistan’s interior minister, called the explosion a “very heinous act”.
The largest province of Pakistan, Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has frequently been attacked by armed combatants, including the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic State group.
Although they claimed in a statement that such an attack was against their policies, the TTP has denied any involvement in the explosion on Friday.
Earlier this month, an explosion in the same district injured at least eleven people, among them a well-known Muslim leader.
At a gathering of a religious political party in the western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in July, more than 40 people were killed in a suicide bombing.
Source-BBC
