Islamabad: A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car in a packed market in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday killing 20 people and injuring over 50, the latest in a series of deadly attacks since the army launched an offensive against the Taliban in the restive tribal belt last month.
The explosion occurred in Farooq-e-Azam Chowk, the main commercial area of Charsadda town, shortly after 4.20 pm local time. The area was crowded at the time of the blast.
Twenty people were killed and over 50 wounded in the explosion, Charsadda district police chief Riaz Mohammad Khan told reporters, describing the blast as a suicide attack.
However, some witnesses said the explosion was caused by a bomb planted in a car parked in the market.
Doctors at Charsadda's main government-run hospital said 33 of the injured had been admitted for treatment while more than a dozen in a critical condition were sent to Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Rescue workers said they feared several people could still be buried in the rubble of shops that had collapsed.
This was the third consecutive attack in NWFP since Sunday. Fifteen people were killed in two suicide attacks on the outskirts of Peshawar over the past two days.
Tuesday's attack was the latest in a string of strikes that have killed more than 300 people over the past six weeks in the country. A late October blast in Peshawar had killed around 120 people in the deadliest attack to hit the country since 2007.
District police chief Khan said he and a group of policemen had passed through the market minutes before the blast. He also said that he and the local police had recently received threats from militants.
A witness said he had seen several injured elderly people and school children whose clothes were stained with blood.
Dozens of shops and residential buildings and several cars were devastated by the blast. The windows of the office of Geo News channel were blown out by the explosion.
Police cordoned off the area as local residents and rescue workers rushed the injured to hospitals in Charsadda and Peshawar. An emergency was declared in the hospitals.
Footage on television showed that several shops, most of them restaurants, were completely destroyed.
Charsadda is located at the crossroads between major cities of North West Frontier Province, including Peshawar and Mardan, and the tribal belt and a lot of traffic passes through the market that was targeted.
Local residents said militants could have targeted Charsadda as it is the hometown of Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali and several other leaders of the secular party that is opposed to the Taliban.
There were also reports that the minority Christian community, several schools and traders in Charsadda had recently received threats from militants.
Tuesday's blast came amid a major army offensive against the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, which was launched on October 17. Military claims that nearly 490 militants and some 44 soldiers have died so far in the fighting.
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