Terror in Mardan: Relatively peaceful year draws to a bloody end

Suicide bomber kills 26, injures 50-plus outside NADRA office

MARDAN:

A Taliban suicide bomber riding a motorcycle crashed into the main gate of a National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) office in Mardan city Tuesday noon, killing 26 people and injuring dozens more, including three women and a child.

The blast that came towards the end of a relatively peaceful year in the militancy-wrecked Pakistan demonstrated the Taliban’s ability to stage deadly attacks, despite the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan Agency that military officials claim has ‘broken the back’ of terrorists.

The bomber struck around 1.30pm when hundreds of people were queuing up at the Nadra office, DIG Said Wazir told The Express Tribune. “The bomber wanted to enter the premises,” he said. “When a security guard, Pervaiz Khan, tried to challenge him and reach out for his gun, the bomber lobbed a hand grenade before detonating his suicide vest.”

Kashif Khan, who works at the Nadra office, said there were two more security guards – one each for men’s and women’s sections. “The staffers were on a lunch break when the bomber struck,” he told journalists. “The casualty figure would have been much high, had the bomber managed to enter the premises because there were five queues of people at different counters.”

The powerful explosion was heard within a radius of several kilometres, The Nadra office is located near Dosehra Chowk, a busy area. Most of the victims were either passersby or those seeking their national identity cards at the office.

Television footage showed the collapsed front wall of the building and twisted metal debris strewn on the road as rescuers tried to douse a fire ignited by the bomber’s motorcycle.

“At least 26 people have been killed and more than 50 injured,” Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani confirmed. “[The] condition of 11 of them is still critical,” he added.

The casualties were driven to the Mardan Medical Complex (MMC) and District Headquarters Hospital, while those with life-threatening wounds were referred to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH). MMC spokesperson Dr. Zulfiqar Durrani said 18 or more people died on the spot while the rest succumbed to the injuries en route to hospitals.

Jamil Shah, the focal person for LRH, said they have received 11 injured – nine men and two women – at the facility. Of them, one expired during the course of treatment, he said, adding that two bodies were also received at the hospital. “Three of the injured have critical wounds.”

Eyewitness Nasir Khan, a 29-year-old labourer who suffered a shrapnel injury to his right leg, said: “I was standing in the queue waiting for my turn as I had gone to renew my national identity card when I heard someone shouting Allahu Akbar and then I fell to the ground.”

“The air was filled with smoke and dust and I could not see anything,” he added. “When the dust settled and I stood up, it looked as though someone had butchered the people in the line. There was only blood and flesh in the row where people were previously standing.”

The spokesperson for a splinter group of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed credit for the grisly carnage. “We targeted Nadra because it is an important institution of Pakistan,” TTP Jamatul Ahrar spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan said in an email sent to the media. “Any institution directly or indirectly engaged in this war will be targeted.”

Security officials said although there was no specific threat, the Nadra office had been asked to revamp its security by installing CCTV cameras and other equipment. Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan condemned the suicide blast and expressed sorrow over the loss of precious lives.

Pakistan has been battling a Taliban insurgency since 2004 after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan caused fighters to flee across the border, where they began to foment unrest. More than 27,000 civilians and security personnel have died in attacks since that time, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a monitoring site.

But overall levels of Taliban-linked violence have dropped dramatically this year, with 2015 on course for the fewest deaths since 2007 – the year the TTP was formed. Analysts have credited the fall to military operations in North Waziristan and Khyber agencies.


Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2015.