Grenade at store selling flags in southwest Pakistan kills 1

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected separatists threw a grenade at a roadside store selling Pakistani national flags in southwestern Baluchistan province on Thursday night, killing a man and wounding 14 people, police said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta, the provincial capital.

A senior police officer, Fida Hussain, said the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital. Wasim Baig, a spokesman for the provincial health department, said one of the wounded was in critical condition.

For nearly two decades, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatist groups demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The government says it has quelled the insurgency, but violence in the province has persisted.

Pakistan will celebrate Independence Day on Aug, 14, the date in 1947 when the country became independence from British colonial rule when India was divided.

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