Three children among 25 injured in Ganjmandi blast

RAWALPINDI: As many as 25 people including three children were injured in an explosion near Ganjmandi Police Station on Sunday, Rescue-1122 and police sources said.

The wounded people were shifted to District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) where two were reported be in critical condition while remaining were said to be stable.

The police and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area and rounded up some suspicious people for investigation.

The sources told ‘The News’ that explosive like grenade or cracker was used on the left side of the police station and it was not aimed at the police station but the public.

On December 4, one man was killed and seven other people were injured in a blast carried out using an improvised explosive device near Pirwadhai Police Station. In March this year, seven people were injured, one of them critically, when an explosive device was detonated in the busy Saddar Bazaar. A similar incident was reported on June 12, when one person was killed while 12 others injured in an explosion in the same vicinity.

City Police Officer (CPO) Ehsan Younas, talking to media persons said that the aspect of terrorism could not be ruled out, however, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) experts are investigating the origin and sort of the explosion.

The CPO, while talking to ‘The News’ said, “There are only 25% chances of act of terrorism are supposed in the perspective of evidence collected from the crime scene.” He said that there are more possibilities that it was not an act of terrorism as a cracker or grenade was used in the act as thrown at Adiala Road in the past, adding that the miscreants involved in the Adiala Road incident were arrested.

“We have decided to protect police stations after this incident and will deploy police in civvies as well,” the CPO said adding that the people engaged in the investigation of the case, have gathered concrete evidence leading to the miscreants.

The security of the general bus stands, markets and other public places has been beefed up, the CPO said and added joint teams of different investigative agencies have been constituted to hunt the troublemakers down. “We will soon get the elements involved in the anti-state activities,” the CPO concluded.