MIRAMSHAH, March 31: Sixteen people were wounded, many of them seriously, when an unidentified man threw a hand grenade in Mirali Bazaar, North Waziristan Agency, on Thursday morning. Officials said that the political administration had arrested two tribesmen on the spot. Eyewitness said that the attack was aimed at an army convoy, which was passing through the crowded bazaar of the town, but it missed the target and hit a car instead.

An official of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), who was contacted in Peshawar, denied that the convoy was the target of the attack.

He claimed that the convoy had passed through the bazaar about 30 minutes before the attack.

The explosion spread panic in the small town, some 30 kilometres east of Miramshah, the agency’s headquarters where the political administration has already placed a ban on arms display. Paramilitary troops were called in to assist the local administration.