PESHAWAR: A powerful blast ripped through a local hotel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial capital Peshawar on Tuesday, killing at least eight persons and injuring more than 40 others injured.
The media reports said that the blast occurred at Pak Hotel near Imambargah Alamdar in Kucha Risaldar area of Kissa Khwani bazaar in Peshawar.
Superintendent Police (SP) City Muhammad Faisal Mukhtar confirmed that it was a suicide blast, while an officer of Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) Shafqat Malik said that about six kilos of explosives were used in the blast.
The injured were taken to Lady Reading Hospital where an emergency was imposed.
Meanwhile, the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) spokesman Shahidullah Shahid condemned the Peshawar suicide blast and denied his group’s involvement in the attack.
The TTP spokesman said that the blast was an attempt to sabotage potential peace talks between the government and the Taliban.
Earlier in the day, unknown gunmen killed a prominent Shia leader Haji Sardar Ali when he was going to his shop in Kissa Khwani bazaar in Peshawar.
Ali headed the local branch of the Tehrik Nafaz-i-Fiqah-i-Jafaria, a Shia rights movement proscribed by the government for its alleged involvement in sectarian violence.
