Three children and two adults were killed in a blast on Wednesday that targeted a school bus in south-western Pakistan, with Islamabad blaming India for the attack.

Terrorists targeted the bus in the city of Khuzdar, in the restive province of Balochistan, as it took students to a military-run school, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said.

Preliminary findings suggested that it was not a suicide attack, he said at a press conference.

The dead included three young girls who were students of grades 6, 7 and 10. More than 40 students were wounded, many of them said to be suffering severe wounds.

Bugti said that his government had intelligence reports that Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was planning something in Balochistan but did not expect him to target innocent children.

“After facing a humiliating defeat on the battlefield, India has resorted to despicable and cowardly acts,” the media wing of Pakistan’s military said in a statement.

“Planners, abettors and executors of this cowardly Indian sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice and heinous face of India will be exposed in front of the entire world,” the statement added.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will make an emergency visit to the province where he would be briefed on the attack by terrorists, allegedly backed by India, said a statement issued by his office.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a rebel group fighting for the independence of the region from Pakistan, earlier claimed it targeted the bus, but said it was transporting the soldiers.

Islamabad claims that the BLA is backed by India.

Violence orchestrated by sub-nationalist rebels has surged in Balochistan, a region that borders both Afghanistan and Iran, and is a hub of Chinese investment and connectivity projects.

Earlier this month, India and Pakistan carried out tit-for-tat drone, missile and airstrikes targeting each other’s military installations and airbases.

The nuclear-armed rivals agreed to the ceasefire on May 10 but continue to accuse each other for terror incidents. (dpa/NAN)

 Thousands of people in north-west Pakistan on Tuesday blocked a highway by placing the coffins of four children who were killed by a suspected drone strike.

The protests in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan region began earlier on Monday after a family home was hit, local resident Mohamed Jamal Dawar said.

It is not clear who was behind the incident.

Local activist Zahid Wazir said the drone was operated by the Pakistani military.

He said the home was likely mistaken as a hideout used by Islamist militants.

Pakistani intelligence officials said the explosives were fired by a quadcopter that was being operated by the Taliban militants to target a nearby military post, but that it missed the target.

An independent verification was not possible as the region is inaccessible to outsiders.

Activists of a local rights group, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, which is against the militarisation of the region by both the military and the Pakistani Taliban, vowed to continue the protest.

“We will continue to demand justice for our kids,” Wazir said.

The Pakistani military and Islamist militants have been fighting each other in the region for more than two decades.

More than 80,000 Pakistanis, an overwhelming majority of civilians, have lost their lives in years of violence. (dpa/NAN)

Benjamin Ritchie, 45, had been on Indiana’s death row since 2002, when he was convicted of killing Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney during a chase on foot.

Benjamin Ritchie, 45, had been on Indiana’s death row since 2002, when he was convicted of killing Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney during a chase on foot.

Ritchie was executed at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to Indiana Department of Correction officials.

IDOC said in a statement that the process started shortly after midnight and Ritchie was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m.

Ritchie’s last meal was from the Olive Garden and he expressed love, support and peace for his friends and family, according to the statement.

Under state law, he was allowed five witnesses at his execution, which included his attorney Steve Schutte, who told reporters he had a limited view of the process.

“I couldn’t see his face. He was lying flat by that time,” Schutte said. “He sat up, twitched, laid back down.”

The process was carried out hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case, exhausting all of Ritchie’s legal options to fight the death sentence.

Dozens of people, both anti-death penalty advocates and supporters of Toney, stood outside the prison until early Tuesday.

Indiana resumed executions in December after a year’s long hiatus due to a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.

Prison officials provided photos of the execution chamber before Joseph Corcoran’s execution, showing a space that looks like an operating room with a gurney, fluorescent lighting and an adjacent viewing room.

They’ve since offered few other details.

Among the 27 states with death penalty laws, Indiana is one of two that bars media witnesses.

The other, Wyoming, has conducted one execution in the last half-century.

The Associated Press and other media organisations filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana seeking media access, but a federal judge denied a preliminary injunction last week that would have allowed journalists to witness Ritchie’s execution and future ones.

The judge found that barring the news media doesn’t violate the First Amendment nor does it single out the news media for unequal treatment.

The execution in Indiana is among 12 scheduled in eight states this year.

Ritchie’s execution and two others in Texas and Tennessee will be carried out this week.

Ritchie was 20 when he and others stole a van in Beech Grove, near Indianapolis.

He then fired at Toney during a foot chase, killing him.

At the time Ritchie was on probation from a 1998 burglary conviction.

Toney, 31, had worked at the Beech Grove Police Department for two years.

The married father of two was the first officer of the small department to be killed by gunfire in the line of duty. (AP/NAN)