Explosion in southern Pakistan kills three Chinese nationals, their Pakistani driver

An explosion ripped through a van inside a university campus in southern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing three Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver, officials said.

The source of the blast at the University of Karachi was not immediately known, said university spokesman Mohammad Farooq.

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Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon said the initial investigation suggests it may have been a suicide bomber. He said that closed circuit television footage from the site showed a person dressed in the female burqa head-to-toe covering walking up to the van, followed by an instantaneous explosion.

The three dead Chinese included the director of the Chinese-built Confucius Institute, which offers Chinese language graduate classes, and two teachers.

The fourth fatality was the Pakistani driver of the van, the officials said.

Abdul, Khaliq, a police official, said an investigation was underway.

Woman suicide bomber

The separatist group, Baloch Liberation Army, said a woman suicide bomber was behind the attack.

The “Baloch Liberation Army accepts responsibility of today’s self-sacrificing attack on Chinese in Karachi,” the group’s spokesman Jeeyand Baloch said in a statement published in English to Telegram, adding it was the first BLA mission carried out by a female militant.

The Baluchistan Liberation Army, the militant group in nearby Baluchistan province, has targeted Chinese nationals in attacks in the past.

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