Hospital sources feared that the death toll might rise as some of the injured were in critical condition.

It was the second major blast during a period of one week in Peshawar, as earlier 13 persons were killed in a car bombing on the City Circular Road on May 16.

Within three hours of the blast some unidentified miscreants hurled two hand grenades on a vacant police post at Wazirbagh.

‘The explosives weighing about 65 kgs were planted in a Suzuki Alto Car which went of when cine-goers were coming out from Tasveer Mahal Cinema,’ said the SSP (Coordination) Qazi Muhammad Jamil.

About the attack on police post, he said that fortunately nobody was around and the building was only partially damaged.
 
An official of the bomb disposal squad said that it was a time device similar to the one used in the last car bombing on City Circular Road.

Sources in the Lady Reading Hospital, where most of the dead and injured were shifted, said that they had received six bodies and 75 injured wherein six were critical.

The eye witnesses who were working in a hotel opposite to the cinema told Dawn that they were busy in routine activities when they heard a loud bang and windowpanes of the building were smashed.

‘Initially, we couldn’t properly see due to the thick smoke and dust as to what had happened but when people started crying inside the cinema we understood that blast had occurred,’ said Fayaz Mohammad, manager of Ambrina Hotel.

With broken windowpanes and concrete strewn all over the place, the groaning injured persons were lying on floor on the busy Cinema Road, housing two cinemas and scores of audio cassettes and CD shops.
 
Another witness Amjad Ali, whose clothes were stained with blood from rescue work, said he was sitting in a shop near the cinema that the blast occurred. ‘The blast took place when a film show had just ended and the people were coming out,’ he said.

The blast destroyed at least eight vehicles including two auto rickshaws. The explosion was so powerful that it smashed windowpanes of the buildings, music centers, CD shops and hotels situated at a distance.

The blast had also played havoc with nearby electricity poles and transformer, causing power suspension in the area.
 
Panicked shopkeepers even in the nearby Qissa Khwani and Khyber Bazaar started pulling down shutters soon after the blast.

The police had cordoned off the entire area and blocked the Cinema Road for vehicular traffic.

The NWFP Minister for Sport and Culture Syed Aqil Shah, who also visited the blast site, told reporters that it was a terrorist act which was aimed at destabilizing the government.

He said his government would never bow to the terrorists and continue fighting them to ensure protection to lives and properties of the people.