PESHAWAR: At least 11 people, including a policeman, were injured when explosives placed in a rickshaw went off near the gate of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) Monday noon when the provincial capital was observing the fifth anniversary of the Dec 16, 2014, Army Public School carnage.

The blast, which the police initially declared a gas cylinder blast, took place at around 12pm near the entrances to the high court and provincial assembly on the Justice Rustam Kiyani Road.

The stretch of the road named after Justice Kiyani, a chief justice of the West Pakistan High Court, connects the Sher Shah Suri Road with the Khyber Road and several important government offices are located in the proximity.

The blast damaged several vehicles parked on the roadside and littered the place with shreds of glass and paper.

Capital city police officer Mohammad Ali Gandapur told reporters at the blast site that 11 persons were injured in the explosion and 10 of them were being treated at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

Official says 4-5kg homemade explosives used in incident near PHC entrance

He said apparently, explosives were also used in the blast.

Mr Gandapur said parking outside the high court was illegal and the police had taken steps against it many times.

Later in the day, a city police statement said the bomb disposal unit’s initial analysis showed that the blast was caused by homemade explosives weighing four to five kilogrammes.

Peshawar SSP (operations) Zahoor Babar Afridi said the police investigators had collected crucial evidence from the blast site.

He said the police had obtained the footage of the nearby CCTV cameras showing that the rickshaw was passing the road when the explosion took place.

However, Mr Afridi said it would be premature to say something about the nature and target of the blast and they were investigating the incident from various angles.

A police source told Dawn that the explosive material was placed in two cartons, which the rickshaw driver was told to hand over to a lawyer at the gate.

He said both cartons were filled with paper, which the driver was told to give to the lawyer.

The source said the driver was asked to call the lawyer after being stopped at the gate and as soon as he dialed the phone number, the explosion took place.

However, another police source claimed that the blast occurred in the moving rickshaw and that neither detonator nor ball bearings were recovered from it showing the transportation of the explosive material.

Witness Tariq Islam said he was near the court’s building when the incident occurred.

He said his vehicle’s windscreen was smashed by to the blast’s impact, while his friend sitting in the vehicle was injured by the shreds of glass and was shifted to the hospital.

Details of the injured issued by the LRH showed that a 65-year-old man was in critical condition, while the rest were stable.

The CCTV grab of incident showed a speeding rickshaw followed by a white car rushing through the roads towards the Khyber Road side and after it disappears from a view a ball of flame, smoke and debris rising in the distance.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast until the filing of this report.

Meanwhile, the Peshawar High Court Bar Association announced a complete boycott of courts across the province against the blast today (Tuesday).

A statement issued here said a general body meeting of the PHCBA would take place in the morning on the matter.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2019