[DAWN] ATTOCK: Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
home minister Colonel (retd) Shuja Khanzada was killed in a suicide kaboom on his political office in Shadi Khan village, Attock, Sunday, along with 16 others.
Punjab Police Inspector General Mushtaq Sukhera inspected the blast site later in the day and confirmed that 14 people, including the Punjab home minister, died in the suicide kaboom
.At least 23 people were maimed in the attack and are currently under treatment at different hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, said the Punjab police chief and prayed for the early recovery of the injured victims.
Three injured at death's door later passed away at DHQ Hospital Rawalpindi, hospital sources confirmed, raising the corpse count from the attack to 17. The driver of home minister Khanzada, Ghareeb Nawaz, was also among the dead.
"There were two jacket wallahs, one stood outside the boundary wall and the second one went inside and stood in front of the minister," Sukhera told news hounds.
"The blast by the bomber standing outside ripped the wall which caused the roof to fall flat on the minister and people gathered there," he said.
Sukhera added police were investigating whether the attacker inside the building detonated a bomb.
He said police could not rule out the involvement of banned sectarian Death Eater outfits against whom the government had launched a crackdown.
The impact of the kaboom caused the roof of the building to collapse, and shattered windows in nearby houses.
Between 50-100 people were estimated to have been in attendance at a jirga being held at Khanzada's political office. Many of them were buried underneath the wreckage as the entire structure had been razed to the ground by the kaboom.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Hazro Syed Shoukat Shah was among the dead recovered from the site. Ten other coppers were present at the scene when the blast occurred.
LeJ involvement
Sources in the interior ministry claim that banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
(LeJ) has taken responsibility of the suicide attack on Khanzada. They alleged Khanzada was under threat following the killing of LeJ chief Malik Ishaq in July.
The Rawalpindi regional police officer confirmed the attack was a suicide blast.