PESHAWAR, June 12: Two policemen were killed and five people, three of them civilians, were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a convoy of Fahim-ur-Rehman, the head of the anti-Taliban Bazidkhel Qaumi Lashkar, in Badbher area near Peshawar on Tuesday.

Mr Fahim, who is also a former Nazim of Bazidkhel union council, remained safe because he was in a car which was not hit.

Police said a terrorist attacked the convoy when it left the village for Peshawar at about 11am.

Both the policemen killed in the attack, Abdul Jabbar (40) and Naheedullah (38), belonged to Bazidkhel village. They were members of the Special Force.

The injured policemen, identified as Anwar Shah (35) and Mohammad Asghar (30) and the three civilians as Abdul Basit (14), Waliullah (12), and Ijaz (39), were from the same village.

SP Shafiullah Khan said it was a suicide attack.

According to bomb disposal unit, legs of the bomber had been found and he appeared to be a teenager. Seven kilograms of explosives were used in the attack.

He said another attack had taken place last month in the same area when a convoy of security forces was passing through the area.

“We came out of the hujra of the former nazim and when crossed the Bazidkhel water canal a huge blast rocked the end of a culvert,” injured policeman Anwar Shah told journalists at the Lady Reading Hospital.

Mr Fahim said that as a routine, he travelled in his own car, but this time he had luckily changed the vehicle and escaped the attack.

“Yes, there are threats to my life, but I am not worried because it was not the first attack on my life,” he said.

He accused Taliban of carrying out the attack because he had been opposing them for a long time and would not succumb to their pressure.

“We are determined to fight the Taliban and Lashkar-i-Islam because they are against Pakistan and killing innocent people,” Mr Fahim said.

About a month ago, he said, the Taliban had kidnapped two of his bodyguards from Mattani area and then dumped their slaughtered bodies in the same area with threatening notes attached to their bodies.

The Lashkar chief said that his bodyguards had killed a suicide bomber last year when he was about to attack him near his residence.

“I have escaped at least five direct attacks, but will never compromise on my principles because Taliban are enemies of the nation and the country,” he said.

Haji Fazal Malik, the founder of Adezai Qaumi Lashkar, was killed recently in a suicide blast in Mattani. At least 105 people of the village have so far been killed in terrorist attacks.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Amir Haidar Khan Hoti condemned the suicide attack and expressed deep grief and sorrow over the death of policemen. He said such cowardly acts by terrorists were aimed at weakening the resolve of security personnel and people.

He said the nation was committed to uprooting terrorism and the fight would continue till the eradication of all terrorists.