PESHAWAR – At least 65 persons, including women and children, were killed and 112 others got injured when a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up in front of the office of Assistant Political Agent in Yakka Ghund area of Mohmand Agency on Friday.
Sources informed that one bomber, who was riding an explosive-laden motorbike, tried to enter the office of the Assistant Political Agent but the security personnel stopped him on the gate. On this he blew himself up at the site where wheelchairs and other relief goods were being distributed among the internally displaced persons (IDPs).
The intensity of the blast was so severe that it badly damaged around 70 shops and portion of a prison. There are also some reports that around 28 detainees have been escaped from the jail situated in Yakka Ghund Bazaar near the office of Assistant Political agent.
Soon after the blast, the local rescuers rushed towards the site and started relief activities on self-help basis. The injured were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, where emergency was declared.
The deceased included six children and three personnel of Khasadar Force.
Agencies add: A suicide attacker and a suspected car bomber caused carnage in a busy market outside a government office in Mohmand on Friday, killing 65 people and burying victims under pulverised shops.
The bombers struck within seconds of each other. One of the bombs appeared fairly small but the other was huge, officials said. At least one bomber was on a motorcycle.
The bombers detonated their explosives near the office of Rasool Khan, a deputy Mohmand administrator who escaped unharmed. The tribal elders, including those involved in setting up militias to fight the Taliban, were in the building, but none was hurt, according to Mohmand chief administrator Amjad Ali Khan.
Video footage showed dozens of men searching through piles of yellow brick and mud rubble for survivors. Women and children were among the victims.
Abdul Wadood, 19, was sitting in a vehicle at the time of the bombings. “I only heard the deafening blast and lost consciousness,” said Wadood, who was being treated for head and arm wounds in Peshawar.
Some 70 to 80 shops were damaged or destroyed, while damage to a prison building allowed 28 prisoners – ordinary criminals, not militants – to flee, said Rasool Khan, who gave the casualty figures.
Near the attack site, officials had been distributing wheelchairs to disabled people and equipment to poor farmers, Amjad Ali Khan said. It was unclear how many participants in that event were among the victims.
Khan disputed reports that the aid was provided through US funding, saying it came from Pakistani government funds.
It was the deadliest attack since gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed prayer halls belonging to the Ahmadi community in Lahore in May, killing at least 82 people.