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At least 15 killed in Peshawar bomb blast
At least 15 people were killed, including two senior police officers, when a parcel bomb ripped through a market in northwestern Pakistan late yesterday, police and officials said.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 January 28, 2007
Islamabad: At least 15 people were killed, including two senior police officers, when a parcel bomb ripped through a market in northwestern Pakistan late yesterday, police and officials said.
A police spokesman said nearly 30 people were also injured in the explosion that occurred in Qisakhawani bazaar in Peshawar, capital of Northwest Frontier province bordering Afghanistan.
It was unknown who was behind the explosion, but Pakistan has been braced for a fresh outburst of sectarian violence during the Islamic month of Moharram, when the country's Shiite minority mourns the death of one of their sect's heroes.
Explosion
While the blast occurred just metres away from Qasim Ali Khan mosque, the largest Sunni mosque in the city, it was also close to a Shiite community centre, which had just been visited by the police caught in the explosion.
"When they went out there was an explosion. It terrified us, the noise was deafening," Sayed Qainul Hassan, in charge of the community centre, said.
Police officer Chaudhry Ashraf said most of the dead were policemen, and half a dozen police were wounded.
A Reuters journalist saw the corpses of three civilians being carried through a hospital by men chanting anti-government slogans.
A power cut in the city made it difficult to gather all the details, officials said.
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