A policeman was martyred while a passerby was injured during a blast in Peshawar’s Karkhano Market on Friday, officials said.
In a statement, police initially said that an unidentified person had hurled a grenade at the police mobile during an operation against Covid-19 SOP violations.
However, Peshawar CCPO Abbas Ahsan — who visited the location to examine the damage — later clarified that the mobile was on a routine patrol when it had been targeted. there have been four police personnel seated within the mobile at the time of the attack, he said.
The police official also said that the character of the blast couldn’t yet be determined. “It cannot be said surely whether it had been a grenade attack or another device was used for the explosion,” Ahsan said, adding that the explosion happened inside the vehicle.
The deceased police official was identified as police team in-charge Ibn Amin, consistent with the CCPO. He added that an unidentified passerby was also injured within the incident and had been shifted to the hospital.
Peshawar Senior Superintendent of Police (Operation) Yasir Afridi, while answering questions by reporters, said the investigation had determined that a grenade was hurled towards the driving seat of the police mobile.
He added the police team had been completing duties associated with polio vaccinations. SSP Afridi said further information would be shared as CCTV cameras were recovered.
Terming the incident “saddening” for the town , he said the police would still stand resolutely regardless of “how much the enemy is scheming such plans”.
“We will give as many sacrifices as required for this city,” SSP Afridi said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Hayatabad Medical Complex said that the injured citizen had been discharged after receiving medical treatment. He said that the body of the martyred policeman had also been delivered to the medical facility.
In October 2020, a minimum of eight people were killed and around 120 others injured when a timed device went off inside a mosque in Peshawar’s Dir Colony.
A month before that, five people were killed and two others injured during a blast within the Akbarpura area of Nowshera after explosive material in scrap collected from the Kabul river detonated.
