Bloodbath in Charsadda: Bomber mows down 17 at Shabqadar courts

TTP faction claims credit for what it calls revenge for Qadri’s hanging

SHABQADAR:

A teenage suicide bomber killed at least 17 people — half of them women and children — at a court complex in Charsadda district on Monday in what a Taliban faction called revenge for last week’s hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer.

Nearly two dozen people were also wounded in the morning rush-hour bombing at the complex housing the courts of civil and sessions judges in Shabqadar. The attack came one and a half months after a deadly Taliban rampage at Charsadda’s Bacha Khan University claimed 22 lives.



DPO Sohail Khalid said the bomber appeared to be in his teens. “He was carrying six to eight kilos of explosives in his suicide vest.” Another police official said there were around 300 people in the complex at the time.

Regional Police Officer DIG Saeed Wazir told The Express Tribune that the bomber shot dead the policeman standing guard at the gate before entering the complex where he was intercepted by two more policemen. “In the ensuing scuffle the bomber detonated the explosives strapped to his chest,” DIG Wazir said. The bomber wanted to target the judges, lawyers and police inside the courtrooms.

DPO Khalid credited the police for preventing the bomber from entering the courtrooms. He added that the death toll would have been much higher, had the bomber managed to enter the courtrooms or lawyers’ desks.

Tariq Hasan Mohmand, the assistant commissioner of Shabqadar, confirmed that 17 were killed and 23 wounded. Six women, two children and two policemen are among the dead. “Condition of four to five injured is critical and doctors are struggling to save their lives,” Hassan said.

Schoolteacher Mureed Khan, who was in the complex for a land dispute hearing, said he was getting documents photocopied when he heard gunshots. “I looked back and there was a huge explosion,” he said, adding the blast threw him over the photocopier.

“I heard screams and saw black clouds of smoke, then I fell unconscious” after being hit by two pieces of shrapnel, he said. Policeman Nasir Khan gave a similar account. The bombing triggered a fire on the vehicles of judges, lawyers and litigants parked inside the complex which was later put out by rescuers.  Dr Hassain, the medical superintendent of Shabqadar hospital, said they have received a dozen bodies and 15 injured people. Five of them died while being driven to nearby Peshawar for treatment of their life-threatening wounds. Some of the injured with critical wounds have been shifted to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital.

Shabqadar Bar Association President Sher Qadir Advocate said they had received threats of an attack some two months ago. “Subsequently, we requested the administration to install closed-circuit cameras and walkthrough gates at the court premises, but our request was ignored,” he told The Express Tribune. 

PBC strike

The Pakistan Bar Council called a strike today (Tuesday) to condemn the bombing. PBC Vice Chairman Farogh Naseem and Chairman Executive Committee Abdul Fayyaz said that lawyers would hold protest meetings in their respective bar rooms and wear black armbands

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it avenged the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri. We targeted the court complex because the judiciary was strengthening ‘un-Islamic laws’, TTP Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan said in a statement emailed to media.

But Peshawar-based senior analyst Brig (retd) Saad Khan said using the name of Qadri was just a cover. “The main purpose of militant groups is to spread terror and to give a message that they are still alive,” he told AFP. “These groups need cover and using the name of Mumtaz Qadri is just an excuse.”


Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2016.