- Title: PAKISTAN: Car bomb kills at least 20 in northwest Pakistan
- Date: 6th December 2008
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Urdu) CHIEF INVESTIGATING OFFICER, INAYATULLAH SHAH, SAYING: "We have come here very early because we wanted to avoid the morning rush. We are carrying out a further search for more bodies. You can see that there is a vast amount of rubble."
- Embargoed: 21st December 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Pakistan
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
- Reuters ID: LVA4G5G21ATAG0KI96VFPAYT380Y
- Story Text: Authorities pull more dead bodies from wreckage of a car bomb that already claimed 20 lives in Peshawar.
Rescue workers and distraught relatives continued to search for bodies in the rubble of a blast that occurred in a congested part of Peshawar city on Friday (December 5) night.
At least 20 people were killed and scores of others wounded in the blast, officials said.
Chief Investigating Officer, Inayatullah Shah, said they expected to find more bodies.
"We have come here very early because we wanted to avoid the morning rush. We are carrying out a further search for more bodies. You can see that there is a vast amount of rubble," he said.
The car bomb went off near an assembly hall of minority Shi'ite Muslims. One building collapsed in flames, while half a dozen others were badly damaged.
The blast was caused by a explosive-laden car, but police said it was not clear whether explosives were detonated by a suicide bomber or by remote control.
Residents were saddened and angered by the blast.
"We are our own enemies; we are selling our souls. We should worry about what we are teaching our children. We are finishing our generations," said Haji Fazl Khan.
Shad Murtaza Hussain said this was the second time he had been injured by a blast in the past few months.
"My foot was blown off in a blast in Parachinar. I had come to Peshawar for treatment. I was sitting in the Imam Bargah (Shi'ite mosque) with my father when this blast occurred. This is sheer cruelty," he said.
"Those who are killing Muslim children and adults, men and women, they cannot be Muslims," he added.
Sunni Muslim militant groups have launched several gun and bomb attacks on the minority Shi'ite sect in recent weeks as sectarian violence worsened in the northwest.
Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat sectarian violence going back to the 1980s.
The majority of Pakistan's Muslims are Sunni but around 15 percent of the nation of 170 million people are Shi'ite.
Sectarian violence has flared in northwest Pakistan over the past year, mostly in the Kurram region on the Afghan border.
Security analysts say al Qaeda and Taliban militants, who are Sunnis and are bitterly opposed to Shi'ites, have stirred up sectarian divisions as they expand their influence through the northwest. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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