10 injured in Peshawar grenade attack

High-quality gunpowder used in the bomb, police say

PESHAWAR: As many as 10 people including five women were injured in hand-grenade attack on Tuesday near the Karkhano police check post in Peshawar.

Other people sustaining injuries included personnel of police and anti-narcotics force (ANF).

The victims included police constable Mohammad Arif, ANF employee Haroon, Hanif, Ayub Khan while four women included Parveen, Pat Makhay, Yasmeen, Khizra. One of the female victims remained unidentified.

Nine victims were shifted to Combined Military Hospital (CMH) while one was moved to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) for treatment.

The condition of one female victim is being reported critical.

After the incident, the police cordoned off the site and Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) and forensic teams collected evidence.

Later, the police and Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) teams visited the site and started the investigation with various aspects under consideration.

The investigation teams are probing whether the police check post was a target of miscreants or otherwise.

The teams have recorded the initial statements of the victims.

After inspection of the incident site, AIG BDU Shafqat Malik told the media personnel that it was not an IED blast and confirmed that they had found the evidence that a hand-grenade was used in the attack.

He added that high-quality gunpowder was used in the bomb and the number of casualties remained high owing to the usage of ball-bearings inside the explosive material.

AIG suspected that the suspects apparently wanted to target an individual.