QUETTA/KARACHI: Police say the death toll from a twin bombing at a billiard hall in southwest Pakistan has risen to 52.

Police officer Mohammed Murtaza says the attack in Quetta, capital of Boluchistan, also wounded more than 100 people.

Police officer Hamid Shakeel says the bombs went off about 10 minutes apart late Thursday evening.

Murtaza says many people were killed and wounded when the second bomb caused the building to collapse. He says many of the dead and wounded are Siite Muslims.

Radical Sunni Muslims have stepped up attacks in Baluchistan this year against Shiites, who they consider heretics.

Apart from that at least 11 people were killed in spate of violence in Karachi, DawnNews reported.

Seven people were killed near Dr Nadir Homeopathic Hospital at Karachi-Hyderabad Superhighway.

“The death toll may rise as some of the injured are in critical condition and we are receiving more and more injured people,” said Dr. Niaz Mohammad afer the twin blast.

Police initially said the Swat blast was caused by an exploding gas cylinder but later police chief Akhtar Hayat said it was a bomb.

It has been more than two years since a militant attack has claimed that many lives in Swat.

The mountainous region, formerly a tourist destination, has been administered by the Pakistani army since their 2009 offensive drove out Taliban militants who had taken control.

But the Taliban retain their ability to mount attacks in Swat and shot schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousufzai in Mingora last October.

The bomb in a market in Quetta targeted a police patrol and mostly killed sellers of vegetable and second-hand clothes, officer Mehmood said.

Three police officers nearby were injured and a child was among the dead, he said.

The United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for the blast.

The group is one of several who are fighting for independence for Balochistan, an arid and impoverished region with substantial gas, copper and gold reserves.

It constitutes just under half of Pakistan’s territory and is home to about 8 million of the country’s population of 180 million.

Human rights groups say hundreds of bodies have been recovered in the region since 2011. Many have broken limbs, cigarette burns or other signs of torture. Local activists blame the security services.

The state denies the accusations and says that insurgents sometimes put on military uniforms before kidnapping people.