A rickshaw laden with a high explosive device blew up in a shopping hub in the Northwest of Pakistan and killed at least nine people and injured over 20 others Tuesday, officials said. The blast occurred in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where there have been rising numbers of militant attacks in recent years.
The local police chief Azmat Ullah said that the explosive was mounted in or on a rickshaw parked in the crowded neighbourhood of the main bazaar. The market-place dazzled by the explosion, then, at happy hour, there was panic and destruction everywhere. Two traffic police officers and a woman were among the dead and several have been injured and are in a “very critical state” at nearby hospitals.
There was no group immediately to claim responsibility for the attack. But the ban is more likely to be assumed upon the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban. The militant group has stepped up activities against security personnel and civilians, particularly in the vicinity of Afghanistan border.
The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has been accused of granting safe haven to the TTP militants a number of times. Kabul has repeatedly denied these charges, saying that Afghan soil is not being used for attacks on neighbouring countries.
In Pakistan, however, the security situation has worsened more than ever since 2021, when the Afghans Taliban regained control of the country, and the militant movements have resurgent more than ever in the border areas since then. The blast has prompted authorities to investigate the incident and beef up security in the hit district after this incident.