PESHAWAR: Twenty people were killed including a suicide bomber who struck a court in Peshawar on Thursday.
Blood, flesh and shattered window glass littered the ground outside the court building, whose main gate was uprooted and where an old man who used to repair spectacles and fountain pens was killed, an AFP reporter said.
The bomber, who arrived in a taxi, was being searched by police officers at the gate of the city’s lower court when he detonated explosives on his body, government official Sahibzada Anees said.
Several damaged motorbikes were strewn at the site, on the main Khyber Road, and firefighters sprayed water on a charred, smoking white car. Dr. Saib Gul of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital said 19 people, including three policemen, were killed and 51 were wounded.
“These attacks will not deter us in our fight against these beasts who are killing our children,” said Bashir Ahmad Bilour, senior minister of the North West Frontier Province.
Abdul Aziz, a restaurant owner in Peshawar, said business was down because of the rash of attacks but he expressed solidarity with the government’s efforts.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said most militant commanders were either killed or on the run.
