Bomb blast injures 4 persons in Pak

Peshawar: A roadside blast outside a girls’ school in northwestern Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province today injured four persons, including three counter terrorism officials.

The improvised explosive device went off at Khatko bridge on the outskirts of Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, injuring three officials of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and one passer-by, police said.

The CTD vehicle was targeted when it was returning from girls’ primary school where an improvised explosive device had exploded.

The main gate of the school was damaged in the blast, police said.

A second bomb was found inside the school and defused successfully.

Police have registered a case and an investigation has been launched.

No group has yet claimed the responsibility for the attack, but Taliban militants have carried out such attacks in the troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

At least 25 people were killed and about 50 others injured in January after heavily-armed Taliban militants stormed a prestigious university and opened indiscriminate fire on students and teachers in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Pakistan established military courts after a terror attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014 killed more than 150 people, most of them students.

Pakistan Army launched ‘Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad’ across the country aimed at indiscriminately eliminating the “threat of terrorism”.

PTI