13 die in Hangu van blast

PESHAWAR:

At least 13 people were killed and five injured on Monday when a bomb exploded in a public transport van in Hangu district, police said.  The vehicle was on its way to Hangu from Thall. The explosion also damaged two other passenger coaches originating from Hangu.

Hangu police chief Abdur Rashid Khan told The Express Tribune that at least 11 passengers were killed while seven were wounded. “At least 11 (people)  have died. Earlier reports putting the death toll at 18 are incorrect,” he added.

Three of the injured persons were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Peshawar, where  one of them died, while the other two are said to be in a critical condition. Other injured were treated at local hospitals.

Khan said that a remote control device was used to detonate at least two kilograms of explosives. He said the police were still clueless about who carried out the attack and why.

Local officials told The Express Tribune that the blast took place in the Jawarzi area of Hangu district, about 18 kilometres east of Kohat.

“The bomb exploded near the village, after the van crossed Ali check-post,” a source said, adding that the blast had killed at least 12 persons, while six men were missing and seven were injured.

Sources quoted security officials as saying that the gas cylinder, which was earlier cited to be the cause of this explosion, was found intact and that pellets used to intensify the bomb’s damage had also been found from the site of the explosion.

This is the second attack targeting public transport in K-P in recent months. On Dec 8 last year, a suicide attacker targeted an Orakzai Agency-bound bus in the Tirah bazaar area of the Kohat district, leaving 18 dead.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18th, 2011.