Terror attack: QWP leader among three dead in Buner blast

A roadside bomb detonated as Adalat Khan’s vehicle was crossing the Daggar area.

DAGGAR:

Three people, including a political leader, were killed while two others sustained injuries on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle in Shoga area of Buner district.

Advocate Adalat Khan, a local leader of Qaumi Watan Party (QWP), his police guard and friends were on their way to Daggar district courts when the incident took place at around 9:45am, said Buner District Police Officer (DPO) Asif Iqbal.

He said an improvised explosive device (IED) was used in the attack, which resulted in the deaths of Adalat and his friend Abid. Police official Muhammad Yaroz Khan as well as Muhammad Amin and Muhammad Mustaqim were severely injured.

Daggar police official Javaid Afsar said the injured were rushed to the district headquarters hospital from where they were referred to a hospital in Peshawar. A police official succumbed to his injuries on the way.

“The vehicle was destroyed due to the impact of the explosion,” he said, adding that a heavy contingent of police rushed to the spot after the incident and launched a search operation.

Adalat’s brother Gohar Khan said his sibling was one of the founders of the committee raised by the government against the Taliban. Adalat had recently received death threats from militants, after which he was provided a police guard, he added.

He said after the killing of the QWP leader Saeed Ahmad alias Fateh Khan in a suicide bombing on November 3, 2012, his brother Adalat Khan was the only remaining stalwart of the QWP who had kept the party intact.

No group has accepted responsibility for the attack till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2014.