Nine killed in Nowshera, Mardan blasts

NOWSHERA/MARDAN: Nine people were killed and another 18 injured in two blasts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday.

Five people, including two brothers, were killed and two injured in a blast at Camp Koroona in Akbarpura town (Nowshera). The explosion was heard far and wide. Soon after the incident, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mardan Range, Sher Akbar Khan, and District Police Officer (DPO) Najmul Hasnain arrived at the spot along with a heavy contingent of the police and the experts from the bomb disposal unit. They cordoned off the area to collect the pieces of evidence. It was learnt that some people had collected scrap near the Kabul River and were selling it to a scrap dealer when a deafening blast took place while the material was being weighed, killing five people and injuring another two.

The people had mistaken the mortar shells and the landmines for scrap and were selling the material to the junk collector when the explosion happened. The officials from the Rescue 1122 took the two injured identified as Farhad and Qaiser to the Mian Rashid Hussain Memorial Hospital in Pabbi wherefrom they were discharged after being treated as they had suffered minor wounds. The police seized 25 more landmines from the spot. DPO Najmul Hasnain said that the recent flash floods had brought with it the explosives and the local people had collected it, mistaking it for scrap. Meanwhile, the local people led by a former nazim Hidayat blocked the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway to protest against the delay in shifting the bodies to hospitals.

However, the police authorities took the plea that the bodies could not be moved from the spot until the experts from the bomb disposal unit cleared the area. Later, the protesters reopened the motorway to traffic.

In Mardan, a least four people, including a man and his two daughters, were killed while 16 others injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) planted in a bicycle went off at Shaheedano Bazaar here on Tuesday, police and local sources said.

The sources said that unidentified accused had planted the IED in a bicycle parked near a famous restaurant at Shaheedano Bazaar, which went off at 7pm in which four people were killed and 16 injured.

Three slain people were identified as Eman, 10, Aleeba, their father Arif and one Saqib. Some of the injured included Adil, Yaseen, Mukhtiar, Rozameen, Imtiaz Akbar, Jawad, Abdul Wadood, Wahid, Bilal and head constable Hammad.

The injured were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital and the Mardan Medical Complex. Sources added that the condition of some injured was critical.

When contacted, Deputy Director of Mardan Medical Complex Dr Javed Iqbal said they had received 12 of the injured of whom two, including a child, succumbed to their injuries. He said two other injured died at the District Headquarters Hospital Mardan. Dr Javed Iqbal said they provided immediate services to the injured to save their lives.

Local residents said the police mobile van was also seen in the same area before the blast and it was not clear if the police van was the target or the restaurant. Initially, it was reported that the blast was caused by the gas cylinder in an auto-rickshaw, but the police and exports of bomb disposal unit declared it a terrorist act. Officials of Hoti Police Station registered the first information report of the incident. Following the blast, the police launched a search operation in the area, but no arrest was made.