Crime & Justice

At least 8 dead, 110 injured in blast at school in Pakistan

Islamabad, Oct 27 (efe-epa).- At least eight people were killed and 110 others wounded on Tuesday in a blast at a religious school in the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan, according to official sources.

“There was Quran lesson going on when the blast occurred. The explosives were hidden inside a bag which somebody brought in the seminary,” Peshawar police spokesperson Faiz Khan told EFE.

Peshawar’s police superintendent Waqar Azeem told EFE that eight students lost their lives, including a minor, and another 110 were wounded.

He added that those injured had been hospitalized, and around 50 of them had already been discharged after receiving treatment.

Azeem explained that the explosion occurred inside a class of older students, so most of the younger students inside the center were unharmed.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Images from the site showed the interior of the seminary severely impacted by the explosion of the bomb that is believed to have weighed around six kilograms (13 pounds).

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack and expressed grief at the loss of lives.

“I want to assure my nation we will ensure the terrorists responsible for this cowardly barbaric attack are brought to justice asap,” Khan posted on Twitter.

Peshawar witnessed a massacre at an Army-run school in the city in December 2014, in which 135 people, including 25 children, were killed.

A day after the Peshawar school attack, then prime minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism-related cases and extended it to other crimes in March 2015.

In recent years, terrorism has reduced significantly in the Asian country, however, in the last few months, there has been an uptick in violence.

Earlier this month, 14 members of the security forces were killed in an attack on an escort convoy of the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited in the insecure province of Balochistan in the southwest of the country.

In August, six people were killed and 24 injured in a bombing at a market in the town of Chaman in the same province. EFE-EPA

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