One person was killed and 33 other, mostly students of a private school, were injured when a bomb placed on a horse-driven cart went off with a bang outside a school in the Nuthia locality of Peshawar Cantonment on Wednesday. Talking to reporters, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Liaquat Ali Khan said that the attack was carried out through planting explosives in a horse cart.
The horse cart was delivering fodder to an animal barn in the area. The injured were rushed to nearby Cantonment Hospital and Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar for treatment. A Mohmand Agency based spokesman of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) accepted responsibility of the strike. However, he said that the target was not the school but a colony of the security forces.
He said that this attack was out of routine as the fodder supplier had gone inside a nearby alley to deliver supplies to his customer, when the blast took place. He said that it was a remote-controlled device. The city police chief said that interrogation in the incident had been started, but declined to divulge further details. However, he blamed militants for the attack. He said that police was monitoring some people on suspicion of militancy.
He said that some remnants of militants were hiding in the guise of persons displaced by floods. According to bomb disposal unit (BDU) officials, five kg explosives were used in the explosion. The explosion occurred in Gul Abad Road area of Nauthia, a locality near Peshawar Cantonment at around 8:00 am outside the Shah Faisal Model School in a residential area.
The bang of the blast was heard in far off areas and spreading panic in the nearby localities and the windowpanes of the nearby houses and school were broken. Islamuddin, Principal of the targeted school ,told reporters that around 10 children of the school had sustained minor injuries in the attack. KP Chief Minister Ameer Haidar strongly condemned the blast and expressed sorrow over death of a person and hurting of young children and innocent people.
The school building was also damaged. The chief minister said the terrorists are following heinous agenda of targeting educational institutes, school buses, school children who are future of the nation and the teachers to throw them to darkness of ignorance but their dream will not realise.
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