| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Terrorists strike Peshawar twice |
| 2009-11-20 |
| [Dawn] Peshawar went through yet another day of bloodbath on Thursday when two strikes, within a space of 14 hours, left 22 people dead. The first target was the city's judicial complex, where a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a court building early in the morning, and the other came late in the night when a roadside bomb destroyed a police van. The first attack claimed the better part of the casualties -- 20 dead and 50 injured. Three policemen were among the dead. The hit on the police van killed two security personnel. Blood, flesh and shattered window glass littered the ground outside the court building, whose main gate was uprooted by the force of the blast. It was the sixth attack on the city in 11 days and came just three days after a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives, killing four people in a suburb. The attack devastated a mosque, damaged a college and a police station. 'The bomber was on foot and tried to get into the judicial complex through its main entry gate. He blew himself up when stopped by police guards at the main gate of the complex,' police officials said. Dr Sahib Gul, head of the trauma centre of the Lady Reading Hospital, told Dawn that 16 victims were brought dead to the hospital, four died in the hospital and condition of two of the injured was critical. The three dead policemen were identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Khaista Gul, Constables Fazal Rahim and Irfanullah. The injured policemen were Umer Hayat, Tariq Khan, Samiullah, Arshad and Samiullah Khan. A lawyer, Qazi Samiullah, from Dir district, and a court official, Ayub Khan, were also killed. An office assistant of the Peshawar District Bar Association, Sarwar Khan, who was deputed at the entrance and was very popular among the lawyers, also died in the bombing. Eight to 10 kilograms of explosives laced with ball bearings were used in the blast, an official of the bomb disposal unit said. Superintendent of Police Nisar Khan Marwat told Dawn that the bomber's target was the main building, but the policemen stopped him at the main gate. 'Had the bomber succeeded in reaching the main building, casualties would have been far higher,' the SP said. Cars and rickshaws parked outside the building on the main Khyber Road were badly damaged. 'I was coming down the stairs in the court when shrapnel from the blast just flew past my head. I was shaken,' a court employee said. Policeman Shakeel Ahmed, who escaped unhurt but left traumatized, told Dawn that he was going to his office on Khyber Road when his car was hit by shrapnel, human flesh and blood. The court building comprises district civil and criminal courts and government departments. The judicial complex has been under heightened security since early last month. The four-storey complex is located just across the sprawling residence of the Corps Commander of Peshawar and the Pearl Continental Hotel. The hotel had been hit by a suicide bombing in June, killing 11 people and injuring 50. The Supreme Court Bar Association's President, Qazi Muhammad Anwer, called upon lawyers to observe a countrywide strike on Friday to condemn the attack. Attack on police The bomb attack on the police van ripped through the vehicle, killing two policemen on the spot and wounding five civilians on the outskirts of Peshawar, adds AFP. 'It was a remote-controlled bomb packed with steel pellets, which was planted on the roadside,' senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan said. The left side of the patrol vehicle, which can seat around six policemen in the back of the cabin, was badly damaged in the attack. |
| Posted by:Fred |