Blast Kills 17 in Pak as Taliban Avenge Mumtaz Qadri’s Execution

At least 17 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a court in northwest Pakistan.

A Pakistani soldier walks past damaged vehicles at the site of a deadly suicide bombing in Charsadda. (Photo: AP)

At least 17 people were killed and 30 others injured on Monday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded court in Pakistan’s restive northwest, an attack the Taliban said was revenge for the hanging of Punjab province governor Salman Taseer’s Islamist assassin.

The suicide bomber blew himself up inside the district court’s compound in Shabqadar Bazaar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. At least 17 people, including two policemen, were killed while 30 others were wounded in the attack, officials said. The Jamatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it was carried out to avenge the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, killer of Taseer.

Qadri was hung last Tuesday at a Rawalpindi jail after his appeal against the conviction was rejected by the Supreme Court. Security and emergency teams reached the blast site and sealed the area. A probe was immediately launched into the assault, Dawn News reported.

At the time of the explosion, the courts were crowded after a break over the weekend. The police said the bomber was intercepted but managed to explode his vest wrapped around his body.