Suicide blast kills 8 in NW Pakistan
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At least eight people including three policemen were killed and 37 others injured in a suicide blast outside a provincial minister's residence in northwest Pakistan on Monday, local sources and TV channels reported.
The blast took place near the house of Mian Iftikhar, information minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pabbi near Peshawar, the main city of the province.
Mian Iftikhar escaped the suicide bomb attack because he was not at the place at the time of blast, police sources told media. Local sources said that a lot of people gathered at the minister's residence in his native Pabbi area at the time of the blast to offer condolence to the minister whose son was killed by militants of disbanded Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Saturday.
Reports said that Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and some other senior officials had planed to visit Iftikhar's residence to offer condolence to him on Monday.
Earlier on the day Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik and ruling Pakistan Peoples Party central leader Raza Rabbani and other important peoples visited the minister to offer condolence.
"Police tried to stop him, but the young man detonated himself, "eyewitness Haji Naeem told a private television Samaa at the cite of the incident.
According to eyewitnesses the suicide bomber was in his 20s. Some reports said that three suicide bombers have entered in Pabbi area and one of them have detonated his explosives.
About 10 kilograms of explosives were used in the blast, police said, adding the suicide bombers failed to reach the target place due to tight security.
Police and paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) have cordoned off the area and are collecting evidences. Ambulances are carrying the dead and injured to the hospital. Emergency has been declared at the Lady Reading Hospital of Peshawar where five of the critically injured were shifted from Pabbi.
The explosion was so powerful that three shops near the residence were completely destroyed.
Unknown gunmen shot dead the son of the minister and injured his nephew on Saturday evening while they were taking a walk in a public area near Nowshera, a city east of Peshawar.
Main Iftikhar Hussain is a well-known anti-terrorism politician in Pakistan. A couple of weeks ago, at a seminar held in Peshawar, he warned that the Taliban militants are regrouping in Khyber Paktunkhwa province and its neighboring tribal areas and vowed to fight the terrorists to the end.
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