At least six people, including a political leader, were killed and over 20 others injured in a suicide blast in Pakistan’s northwest provincial capital of Peshawar on Tuesday night, police said.
According to police, a suicide bomber exploded his explosives-laden vest when the provincial leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) Haroon Bilour was attending a public meeting in Yakatoot area of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The bomber managed to reach near the killed politician when party workers were celebrating his arrival with fireworks, police said.
Police, security forces and rescue teams rushed to the site and shifted the bodies and injured to the Lady Reading Hospital of the city.
An emergency was declared in all the hospitals of the city.
An official from the Lady Reading Hospital said that the death toll might further rise as five of the injured are in critical condition.
Haroon Bilour’s 16-year-old son, who was accompanying his father, was also injured seriously.
The Bomb Disposal Squad of police said that at least 8 kilograms of explosives along with ball bearings was used in the attack.
No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack yet.
Bashir Bilour, the father of Haroon Bilour and senior political leader of the ANP, was also killed in a suicide blast during the election campaign in Peshawar in 2012.
Haroon Bilour was a candidate for a provincial assembly seat from Peshawar and he was campaigning for the country’s July 25 general elections.
