Bureau Report
RAWALPINDI: At least 25 people were injured in an explosion in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi on Sunday, according to police.
The explosion believed to have been caused by a grenade blast occurred near a police station. Some are critically wounded in the blast in Punjab state, near the capital Islamabad.
City police Chief Mohammad Ahsan told reporters that the nature of the blast is yet to be known.
This was the second bomb blast near a police station in Rawalpindi this month. On Dec.4, at least one person was killed and another seven injured when an improvised explosive device went off outside a police station located in a densely populated locality in the garrison city, which houses the headquarters of the country’s powerful army. No group has yet claimed the responsibility for the attack, a rare happening in this part of the South Asian nuclear state.
Meanwhile, rescue officials said that the explosion occurred at a filtration plant situated across the Ganj Mandi police station. The area has been cordoned off and officials of Counter-Terrorism Department and forensic experts have arrived on the scene. In March this year, seven people were injured, one of them critically, when an explosive device was detonated in the busy Saddar Bazaar. A similar incident was reported on June 12, when one person was killed while 12 others injured in an explosion in the same vicinity.
Moreover, Chief Minister of Punjab Usman Buzdar has taken notice of a blast near Rawalpindi and ordered investigation of the incident. The chief minister has also called report from the Regional Police Officer (RPO) Rawalpindi. He has directed the officials to ensure best possible medical facilities to the injured people. Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed, who has been in Lahore to monitor security situation during an opposition public meeting in the city, has als called report of the grenade blast in Ganjmandi.
