Spotlight: Security beefed up in major Pakistani cities after deadly attack at police cadets

Security has been beefed up in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province after a deadly attack at a police training center in the province's capital of Quetta.

The attack, which claimed 60 lives and injured 117 others, took place late Monday at the Sariab Training Center, some 20 km away from downtown Quetta, said Interior Minister of Balochistan Sarfaraz Bugti.

The minister also announced a three-day mourning in the province while Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces announced one day mourning over the incident.

The Islamic State (IS) claimed the fatal attack. The militant group's Al-Amaq news agency stated that three IS fighters used machine guns and grenades and later blew up their explosive vests in the crowd during the attack.

Pakistani Army chief Raheel Sharif, accompanied by other senior army officers, flew to Quetta and attended funeral prayers of the under-training policemen who belonged to different districts of the province.

The army chief also visited the police training center and met senior officers of police, army and paramilitary troops, Frontier Corps (FC) and appreciated the morale, courage and determination of security forces for preventing further damage and saving many lives, said the army's Inter-Services Public Relations.

Bodies of the killed cadets were handed over to their relatives following the funeral, which was also attended by senior government officials including the Chief Minister Balochistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also reached Quetta to seek reports about the incident and review the security situation in the province.

Condemnations from home and abroad started pouring in following the attack. The country's president, chief ministers of all four provinces and leaders of political parties condemned the deadly attack and extended condolences to the bereaved families.

Security of other important places including the country's capital Islamabad and its sister city of Rawalpindi and Punjab's capital city Lahore was also beefed up.

Bugti said the attackers armed with suicide vests, automatic guns and hand grenades entered the hostels of police training center from a rare gate at about 11:05 p.m. local time on Monday.

The militants were intercepted by a sentry on a watchtower, but they shot him dead after a brief exchange of fire, Bugti said.

He said that there were some 700 cadets in the three compounds of the hostel out of which 250 were held hostage by the militants while others managed to flee.

He maintained that heavy contingents of army, FC and other law enforcement agencies arrived at the scene soon after the attack and launched an operation.

Helicopters and drones were also used for surveillance. Major General Sher Afgun, chief of the FC in Balochistan, which led the counter-operation, said that they received the information about the attack at 11:10 p.m. local time and when the troops reached the center, one of the militants had already blown himself up inside the hostel, resulting in a large number of casualties.

Afgun said that the second suicide bomber was shot dead by the troops while the third one also blew himself up during the clearance operation.

He said that an FC captain was killed while four army troops and three FC personnel were injured during the clearance operation, which continued for hours.

The FC chief said that the militants belonged to banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi and were getting directives from their handlers in Afghanistan.

However, the group did not took credit of the attack which was later claimed by the IS.

A police official said that 12 hand grenades and three Kalashnikovs belonging to the attackers were recovered from the compound during search operations afterward.

Bugti said the attackers included a 12-year-old boy, but further investigations are being made to determine their identities. Endit