Pakistan

20 dead in Kohat police colony blast

At least 20 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a police residential complex in Kohat.

Manzoor Ali September 08, 2010

At least 20 people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a police residential complex in Kohat district on Tuesday, police said.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AFP in Peshawar that 20 people had died and more than 50 were injured. The toll was confirmed by Fazal Naeem, a police spokesperson in Kohat.

Police said that six policemen, two women and three children were among the dead. Kohat District Police Officer Dilawar Bangash confirmed that it was a suicide attack and that the attacker had been driving a vehicle carrying explosives. However, Khalid Khan, a top administrative official in Kohat, told AFP that it wasn’t yet clear if the car was parked or exploded by a suicide bomber. There were no claims of responsibility.

The blast left a ten-foot-wide and eight-foot-deep crater in the ground. Police sources said that a double cabin vehicle was used in the attack. The force of the blast destroyed at least 25 houses and 40 shops in the colony, trapping several people beneath the rubble as locals and policemen searched for survivors in pitch darkness as electricity was suspended in the area.

Police sources said that people might be trapped in the debris of houses and buildings and rescue workers were trying to retrieve as many people from the rubble as they could.

According to locals, the bomber struck close to Iftar timings when most people were busy opening their fast. They said that the blast was so intense that it rocked nearby areas and brought down houses and electricity lines, plunging the area into darkness.

Separately, a policeman was killed and three others were injured when a bomb targeted a police mobile in the southern district of Hangu. DSP Faridullah Khan sustained critical injuries in the blast, said Hangu police chief Abdur Rashid Khan.

Violence has surged in the country during recent days and on Monday, 19 people including policemen and school children were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a police station in the southern district of Lakki Marwat. Lahore and Quetta have also borne the brunt of suicide attacks and around 100 people were killed in these cities.

Earlier, the provincial information minister told reporters in a briefing in Peshawar that terrorists were taking advantage of the flood disaster.

He said that militants were present in the tribal belt and it was the federal government’s duty to take them on as the tribal areas were under its jurisdiction.

He warned that the country was sitting on a “tinderbox” and urged security agencies to concentrate on terrorist networks across Pakistan. (With additional input from AFP)

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2010.

COMMENTS (3)

Sharif Ullah | 14 years ago | Reply When we have talabans and Molvies we donot need "Foreign Hands" and Foreign Enemy

Sultan Ahmed. | 14 years ago | Reply According to my view,there is terrorist network,work under the leadership of foreign hidden hand which provide aid in form of money that distributed and purchase local poor persons for suicide attack. We are agree that terrorist is not Muslim ,not human being who kill innocent people including women and children and lost his own life when our mind spread badly,we are compelled to thinking what is reason behind this,no Muslim can do such act which is against the Islamic principles,there is no such traditions in the Islamic history,all the clerics,relating different sects has issued FATWAS time and again but the same has been discarded and sequence of suicide attacks are going on. The result of above-mentioned discussion is that our poverty create suicide attackers,lives of those are purchased, who are living and compelled to remained under poverty line. As for Islamic preaching is concerned,the work has already been done on the line but remained fruitless. Now a new option before us it need proceed,should search the poorest families living in remote tribal areas,contact with them and provide them livelihood so that they avoid to see around and not become easy virtue in the hands of such organization spreading terrorism in the country. Drone attacks must be stopped at any cost,it create counter terrorism/revenge,when a man lost his beloveds in the drone attack he is filled with revenge and become comrade of insurgent's organizations and in revenge offer his life. Money, religion, and revenge, three option being used by the terrorist organizations,we should proceed keeping in mind their strategy and adopt a new strategy which make failed their satanic efforts.

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