Explosion in Peshawar injures 7, including 4 children

PESHAWAR: An explosion targeting policemen on Warsak Road left at least seven people, including four children, injured Tuesday morning.

According to police, the explosion occurred when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off on the busy road in the provincial capital at around 9.10am.

The injured were immediately shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital, where it was said that the condition of two of the children was critical.

According to the hospital’s spokesperson, the children are in the age bracket of 7 to 10 years.

SSP Operations Kashif Aftab Abbasi said the Machnigate Police Station’s mobile vehicle was on routine patrol when the explosion occurred.

He said that the CCTV footage of the explosion was being examined.

Superintendent Police Arshad Khan informed that the explosives, weighing around 4 kilogrammes, were placed inside a cement block on the roadside.

The SP said the police have started a search operation, adding that “it would be premature to say who the target was”.

Mayor Metropolitan Zubair Ali said while talking to journalists that the explosion near a school was an attempt to disturb the peace and order in the area. “The explosion near an educational institutions is unfortunate,” he said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar strongly condemned Tuesday’s bomb blast on Warsak Road.

The prime minister instructed the authorities concerned to provide the best possible medical facilities to the children who sustained injuries in the explosion, and prayed for their early recovery, according to a PM Office statement.

He directed the law enforcement agencies to probe into the incident and reiterated that the nefarious designs of the terrorists to mar the country’s peace would never let to succeed.

The prime minister reiterated the resolve that the war against terrorism would continue till elimination of the scourge and assured that the perpetrators of the incident would be brought to the task as soon as possible.