11 people injured in blast outside Peshawar High Court

PESHAWAR: Eleven people were injured in a bomb explosion outside the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday when the fifth anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on the Army Public School was being observed in the city.

This was after a long time that the city witnessed a bomb blast. There has been peace generally in the city and the rest of the province in recent years.

Officials initially tried to downplay the incident by terming it an explosion caused by the CNG tank of an auto-rickshaw. It was, however, confirmed after a few hours that explosives had been used in the blast. "Eleven people were injured in the blast,” Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Mohammad Ali Gandapur told reporters. He added that 10 people were still in the hospital for treatment.

The injured included Shahbaz Khan, a police constable, and civilians Taj Mohammad, Shehryar Khan, Ajmal, Naeem, Javed, Nawaz Khan, Libas Khan, Mir Zaman, Mahmood Khan and one unknown person.

About the nature of the blast, the CCPO said that they were collecting evidence from the spot outside the PHC premises to confirm its nature. He said the parking outside the PHC premises was illegal. Senior Superintendent of Police Operations, Zahoor Babar Afridi said the CCTV footage of the incident had been collected and would help the investigators. He said it cannot be said at this stage as to who was the target. The spokesman for the Capital City Police, Mohammad Ilyas later confirmed that the blast had been triggered by explosives.

“The bomb disposal unit estimated that four to five kilograms of locally made explosives were used in the blast,” said the spokesman. The driver of the rickshaw was also wounded in the blast and was taken to hospital. The explosion damaged three other cars as well. The police later took the driver of the auto rickshaw C7168, Ajmal Khan, of the Phandu Road into custody to find as to how and who had placed explosives in the auto mobile and what was the target and motive.

And investigator said they were probing to find if the explosives were being transported somewhere else as no ball bearings or detonators were found with it at the site of the blast. The Counter Terrorism Department lodged the case in the incident.

The lawyers bodies announced strike for Tuesday to protest the blast outside the PHC. Many users of the social media criticised the authorities for downplaying the incident and terming the terrorist attack an explosion caused by a CNG cylinder.