October 27 – major explosion at a madrassa has rocked a colony in Pakistan’s Peshawar. Local reports say at least seven people have died while 70 others have suffered injuries in the powerful blast at a madrassa in Dir Colony of Peshawar.
“The blast took place in a madrassa where unknown people had planted explosives in a plastic bag,” a police officer told Reuters on Tuesday. Children were among the dead, he added.
A spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital nearby said it had received seven dead and 70 wounded patients, many with burns suffered in the blast.
Tariq Burki, the director of the hospital, said four of the dead were children.
The madrassa is largely for adult students and many were studying when the blast happened, said city resident Abdul Rahim, whose said his 27-year old cousin was among the wounded.
IED USED IN EXPLOSION
Pakistani media outlet The Dawn has quoted senior police officials to say that improvised explosive devices (IED) were used to trigger the explosion. Five kgs of explosives were used in the powerful blast in Pakistan on Tuesday.
“The blast took place in a seminary during a Quran class. Someone took a bag inside the seminary,” Waqar Azim, a senior police official, told AFP.
SERIES OF BLASTS
In another incident on Sunday, an explosive device killed at least three people in the capital of southwestern Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province. The explosion took place despite heightened security as opposition political parties held a large open-air rally in another part of the city, reported Associated Press.
On October 21, a powerful explosion ripped through a four-storey building in Pakistan’s Sindh province, killing at least five people and injuring 20 others.
At least two floors of the building near Maskan Chowrangi in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area in Karachi were severely damaged, leading authorities to fear that the toll may rise.
Source – India Today (With inputs from agencies)
