PESHAWAR A suicide bomber blew himself up as he tried to enter a house owned by Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan on Thursday, killing four people but missing the politician, officials said.
The incident took place in the town of Charsadda outside a hujra (guest house) belonging to Wali, a member of Pakistan`s governing coalition. The bomb exploded as Wali was visiting a guest in a room attached to the house during celebrations for the Muslim festival of Eidul Fitr, police and party officials told AFP.
The politician was not hurt in the attack.
`Four people were killed in the suicide blats. The target was Asfandyar Wali but he is safe,` Mian Iftikhar, the information minister for North West Frontier Province, told local television.
Provincial police chief Malik Naveed told AFP that guards shot the bomber before he blew himself up. `The suicide bomber tried to pass from the security scanner avoiding a physical search. Two security guards grabbed him but he tried to get away,` Naveed said.
`Then he was shot and as soon as he fell on the ground he blew himself up.`
He added `We had made strict security arrangements and that is why the attacker could not cause more damage or casualties.`
A senior party member said that one of Asfandyar Wali Khans armed guards was killed in the latest attack.
`The incident happened outside the hujra (guest house). One suicide bomber was trying to enter, he was stopped but the bomber blasted himself. The guard was killed,` the party member, Haji Adeel, told DawnNews television.
Police said the other victims included a policeman and a bank manager who was visiting to pay his respects to Khan.
Asfandyar Wali said the ANP will not change its stand and nobody will be allowed to challenge the writ of the government.
We stand for this soil and would die for this soil, Wali said while talking to newsmen at Wali Bagh Charsadda after the suicide attack outside his house.
He said such cowardly acts cannot daunt the government off of its duty to eliminate terrorist elements from Pakistan.
He strongly condemned the blast and expressed sorrow over the loss of lives in the incident.
He said the ANP will pursue the national policy in the war against terrorism. Every ANP worker will fight against terrorism and extremism in Pakistan, he added.
He said the government will negotiate only with those who lay down their arms and accept the governments writ.
The ANP chief said terrorists wanted to create unrest and anarchy in the country but the government will foil these designs.
Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik said the incident was highly condemnable. This attack on a leader of a big stature is an attack on Pakistan.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also condemned the blast, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Elements bent upon destroying the peace of the country will not be allowed to succeed in their ulterior motives, President Zardari was quoted as saying.
The ANP joined Pakistans coalition government, which is led by the Pakistan Peoples Party, after beating allies of former president Pervez Musharraf in elections in January.
Asfandyar Wali Khan is the chairman of the Pakistani parliaments foreign relations committee.
