Twenty-five people were killed and Federal Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao Khan and his young son Sikandar Sherpao Khan were among scores injured in a suicide attack on Saturday, moments after the minister finished a speech at a public rally in his hometown Charsadda. NWFP Inspector General of Police Sharif Virk said five policemen were among the 25 dead. Unofficial sources put the death at more than 30.The head of the suicide bomber, who had a brown beard and was aged 30-35, was found at the site of the blast near Station Koroona in Charsadda, and “he looks like an Afghan,” Virk told reporters.
“Sherpao was going towards his vehicle after finishing his speech and people also rushed towards him for hand-shakes and during this moment I heard a big bang,” said Ayub, who was injured in the blast, from his hospital bed. “It was a big explosion sending a thick cloud of dust to the air,” Wajid Khan, another witness, told Daily Times by phone from Charsadda.
The minister and his son received minor shrapnel wounds. Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao spokesman Saleem Shah Hoti said they had been taken to their Peshawar residence in University Town and were “safe and sound”. TV footage showed Sherpao and his son walking around with blood stains on their clothes. The minister had blood on his face.
Sherpao released a statement condemning the bombing as an act of cowardice and vowed to continue his work trying to defeat terrorism as usual. An emergency was declared in three hospitals in Peshawar, where 29 wounded persons had been brought in by around 10pm. Others were said to be on their way from Charsadda. Intelligence sources said that the minister had been forewarned of a possible attack on him and “circumstantial evidence links Waziristan to the Saturday attack”. They said investigators would probe how the bomber was able to reach the area and move close to Sherpao. “Security around the interior minister is at an all-time high and tight wherever he is and we have to assess whether there was a security lapse,” they said.
NWFP Information Minister Asif Iqbal told reporters the provincial government would pay Rs 100,000 each to the families of those killed in the attack and Rs 50,000 to each person wounded. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. The interior ministerÂ’s elder brother Hayat Sherpao was killed in a blast when he was addressing a function on the University of Peshawar campus in 1975.