QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen stormed a police training center late Monday in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province and detonated explosive vests, killing at least 48 police trainees, authorities said.

Baluchistan’s top health official, Noorul Haq, said at least 116 people were wounded — mostly police trainees and some paramilitary troops.

A security official put the death toll at 51. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media,

Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, told reporters Tuesday that the attackers appeared to be in contact with handlers in Afghanistan. He said the attackers belonged to the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi group, an Islamic militant group affiliated with al-Qaida.

Neither Lashker-a-Jhangvi nor any other group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Islamic State group and breakaway Taliban faction Jamaat-ul Ahrar have claimed responsibility for past attacks in Baluchistan. Lashker-e-Jhangvi has mainly targeted members of minority Shiite sect of Muslims.

The attack started when between four and six gunmen opened fire as they rushed the hostel at the police training center in a suburban area of the provincial capital of Quetta.