QUETTA: Four personnel of Frontier Corps were martyred and three others sustained injuries in an explosion in the Margot coal mines area, some 160km northeast of the provincial capital, on Friday.

Officials said that the FC bomb disposal personnel were sweeping the area to clear the Margot area of landmines when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded.A spokesman for the banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in a statement issued to the media claimed responsibility for the IED attack.

A senior official of the Quetta administration later confirmed to Dawn that four FC men were martyred in the IED explosion, while three others received injuries. He said that a vehicle of the bomb disposal squad was badly damaged in the blast. `It seems the IED was detonated with a remote control,` he remarked.

Soon after the blast, security forces deployed in the arearushed tothe site and shifted the bodies and the injured to hospital. According to official sources, Subedar Shahzed Amin, Naib Subedar Abbas, Sepoy Khalil Ahmed and Sepoy Zahid embraced martyrdom,while Lance Naik Zafar, Lance Naik Farooq and Sepoy Khurram Saleem received injuries.

Security forces have launched an operation in the hilly area of the Margot mines after the incident to locate those involved in the attack.