PESHAWAR: Five people, among them four children, were injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast near a school in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, police and rescue officials confirmed.
The IED blast took place at Peshawar’s Warsak Road at 9:10 a.m., Rescue 1122 service said in a statement. It added that two motorcycle ambulances, four ambulances and fire vehicles were dispatched to the area for rescue operations after the blast was reported.
“Five people were injured in the blast out of which four were children,” the statement said. “The injured have been shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) in Peshawar.”
Muhammad Asim, an LRH spokesperson, told Arab News two of the four children were in critical condition.
Police and army soldiers cordon off an area following a bomb explosion, in Peshawar, Pakistan, on December 5, 2023. (AP)
Meanwhile, Warsak Road Superintendent of Police Arshad Khan told reporters four kilograms of explosives were used in the blast that took place outside the Peshawar Public School at the busy road.
No group has taken responsibility for the incident.
Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar condemned the blast in strong words, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement. The premier urged authorities to provide the best possible care to the injured children and prayed for their speedy recovery.
“We will never allow the evil intentions of terrorists to destroy Pakistan’s peace succeed,” Kakar said. “We will continue the war till the scourge of terrorism is not eliminated from the country.”
He urged authorities to complete their probe into the blast, vowing that those responsible for the incident would be punished.
Pakistan has been witnessing an uptick in militant attacks, particularly after the Pakistani Taliban called off their fragile truce with the government in November 2022, with a majority of these incidents targeting the two provinces along the Afghan border.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly asserted that militants targeting their country operate from neighboring Afghanistan, urging the Taliban government in Kabul to prevent their territory from being used as a staging ground for such attacks.
