ISLAMABAD, 14 October 2004 — Two villagers were killed in an explosion yesterday when they tried to break open an anti-tank mine with a hammer to use the casing for a stove to fry snacks, police said. Villager Muhammad Latif found the mine in a village near the town of Sialkot, near Pakistan’s heavily fortified border with rival India, and brought it home, Mirza Zafar, a senior police officer in Sialkot said.
Latif wanted to use the casing to make a stove to cook pakora, a type of fried snack popular during Ramadan, he said. The mine exploded when Latif tried to smash it open with a hammer, killing him and another man and wounding a three-year-old child, another police officer said.
