Targeted attack: Car bomb kills 11 in Peshawar market

Political tehsildar of North Waziristan Agency, his son, brother and cousin among the victims.

PESHAWAR:

At least 11 people – including an officer of the North Waziristan political administration, his brother, son and cousin – were killed in a car bomb attack on the outskirts of the provincial capital on Friday.

Officials and witnesses said that an explosives-laden Alto car, parked near a double-cabin pickup truck, went off in the centre of the Matani bazaar on Friday evening.

The double-cabin and the car were reduced to a heap of mangled metal, making it difficult initially for the police to determine which of the two carried the explosives.

“Since both vehicles were destroyed, it is difficult to say which of the two had the bomb,” Hukam Khan, an official of the Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS), told the media hours after the blast.

He added that the device weighed around 30 kilogrammes – with four 82mm mortar shells fitted in it.

However, later in the night it transpired that the double-cabin pickup truck belonged to the political tehsildar of North Waziristan Agency, Hashim Gul, son of Rehmat Gul.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, had earlier confirmed to AFP that the pick-up truck was driven to a mechanic in the Matani bazaar earlier in the day by three men. Hussain could not, however, identify them.

Khurshid Khan, the superintendent of police (Rural), confirmed to The Express Tribune that Hashim, his brother Zahir Shah, son Sajid Gul and cousin Ajab Gul were among the fatalities. Their bodies were charred and mutilated beyond recognition.

Amin Gul, another cousin of Hashim identified the bodies at the morgue of the Lady Reading Hospital. “They were returning from Manki Sharif to their home in Adezai village, on the outskirts of Peshawar,” Amin told The Express Tribune.

Police did not say whether it was a suicide attack or the bomb was planted in the Alto.

Police threw a security cordon around the area after the explosion which also pulled down around 15 shops in the bazaar.

No senior official visited the blast site, much to the anger of residents who drove the casualties to the LRH on a self-help basis. At the hospital, staff scuffled with families of the victims after ambulance drivers refused to shift the bodies to their homes. The chief executive, medical superintendant and public relations officer of LHR were not present to deal with the emergency.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban militants have been carrying out similar bombings and suicide attacks in Peshawar.

In the last five years, attacks blamed on the Taliban have killed more than 5,000 people according to an AFP tally.

According to official statistics, 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

(With additional input from AFP)

 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2012.