1 dead in grenade attack on a store selling national flags ahead of Pakistan’s Independence Day

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Officials say suspected militants have hurled a hand grenade at a store selling Pakistani national flags in the southwestern Baluchistan province, killing one person and wounding six others ahead of Pakistan’s independence day. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta, the provincial capital. Wasim Baig, a spokesman at a government hospital, said they received six injured people and the body of a man after Tuesday’s blast. The attack came days after a separatist group in Baluchistan warned people not to celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day on Thursday, which commemorates Aug. 14, 1947, when Pakistan gained independence from British colonial rule.