CHARSADDA: A suicide car bomb tore through a crowded shopping street in Pakistan on Tuesday killing 32 people in the third militant attack to strike the country in as many days.
The bomber blew up his vehicle in the heart of the northwest town of Charsadda on a road lined with fruit and juice shops, ripping off shop roofs and littering the ground with slippers, human flesh and broken push carts.
“I was buying something before closing my shop. A car was parked on the other side of the road and all of a sudden there was a huge blast,” said Ali, a shopkeeper who suffered shrapnel wounds to his chest and forehead. Express television quoted an eyewitness as saying that the bomber rammed his car into other vehicles and push carts at the market.
The blast damaged signboards and at least six vehicles, including two buses, during the afternoon shopping rush in the town’s most popular market.
“At least 32 people died in the Charsadda blast and more than 100 wounded,” North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AFP. Seven children and three women were among the dead, police said.
The wounded were being treated in Charsadda and the northwestern capital Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal belt.
The government blames increasing attacks on Taleban. “The bombing today was the militants’ reaction to the ongoing anti-Taleban operation,” said NWFP Law Minister Arshad Abdullah.
“It is a war-like situation and foolproof security is not possible in such a situation. Our police force is geared up for any emergency... They are motivated and tackling terrorism with great courage,” said Abdullah.
“The attacks in cities are a part of our permanent strategy. These attacks will continue and we will attack everyone who wants to harm us,” Taleban spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone before the latest bombing.
