Risalpur incident: Grenade attack at PAF base injures 18

Assailants target people in a recruitment queue.

NOWSHERA:

At least 18 people including six security personnel were injured on Tuesday when unidentified assailants hurled a hand grenade at a gate of the Military College of Engineering in Risalpur.

Muhammad Ishaq, an officer of the Risalpur police force, told The Express Tribune that two unidentified men on a motorbike approached Gate-III of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Base at around 11 am and the pillion rider threw a hand grenade aimed at people standing in a queue.

“They [the injured] were waiting for the entry passes when the incident happened,” Ishaq said, adding that most of the young men in the queue had come to submit documents for recruitment purposes.



The injured security personnel were rushed to the Combined Military Hospital Risalpur while the civilians were taken to the headquarters hospitals in Mardan and Nowshera. The attackers managed to escape even though security forces had surrounded the area and started a search operation immediately.

Ishaq said that the incident occurred in a sensitive area of the Cantonment because a large number of civilians had entered it without passes seeking employment.

The injured security officials were identified as Pervaiz, Amjad, Mir Hassain, Atif and Abdullah. The name of the sixth injured official could not be ascertained.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2012.