Boy killed in landmine blast in South Waziristan district

WANA: A boy was killed and his brother sustained injuries in a landmine blast in Ladha tehsil of South Waziristan tribal district, official sources said on Thursday.

They said two brothers Umar Farooq and Muhammad Afzal Mahsud were playing near their house in Mushta area in Ladha when one of them stepped on a landmine, triggering an explosion. As a result, the sources said, Farooq was killed on the spot while Afzal sustained serious wounds in the incident.

The doctors at the local hospital referred the injured boy to a hospital in Peshawar due to his precarious condition. However, the driver of the public ambulance, Ghulam Rasool, refused to shift the injured child to Peshawar in the vehicle.The episode continued for an hour. Later, District security in-charge Zafar Mahsud reached the spot and tried to persuade the driver but to no avail. He sent the driver to the lockup for refusing to perform duty and arranged another driver to shift the injured child to a hospital in Peshawar.

Meanwhile, the tribal elders Noor Nawaz Khan, Shireen Khan and others staged a protest against the Agency Surgeon Rahim Nawaz for the failure to perform duty and lack of life saving medicines at the hospital.