At least 40 people were killed while 200 were wounded in a blast at a Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) convention in the Khar tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district on Sunday, officials said.
Bajaur District Emergency Officer Saad Khan confirmed the casualties and number of injuries to the media.
He said Maulana Ziaullah Jan, a key JUI-F leader in Khar, also passed away in the blast.
Khan added that the injured persons were being moved to hospitals in Peshawar and Timergera.
Meanwhile, footage on television showed ambulances arriving at the site as a large contingent of police cordoned off the area.
Speaking on a private TV channel, JUI-F leader Hafiz Hamdullah said he was supposed to attend the convention today but could not because of some personal commitments.
“As per the reports I have received, 10-12 workers have been martyred and over a dozen injured,” he said.
“I strongly condemn the blast and want to give a message to the people behind it that this is not jihad but terrorism,” the JUI-F leader said, adding that today’s incident was an attack on humanity and Bajaur.
He demanded that the blast should be probed, recalling that this was not the first that the JUI-F had been targetted. “This has happened before […] our workers have been targetted. We raised our voice over this in the Parliament but no action was taken.”
Hamdullah also extended his condolences to grieving families and urged the provincial government to provide the best medical facilities to the injured.
