KHAR: Nine security personnel were injured in a roadside bomb blast in Bajaur Agency’s Nawagai tehsil on Monday.

Officials said members of a bomb disposal squad were going to a place where a bomb had been planted by militants but before they could reach there and defuse it they were hit by an improvised explosive device in Hilal Khial Charmang, 40km from here.

The injured were identified as Hawaldar Gul Hassan, Naik Barkat, Nazeer, Mansoor, Rahim Khan, Javed, Imran and Abdul Waheed. The ninth member could not be identified.

Security forces, villagers and members of a village defence committee took part in rescue activities and the injured were taken to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Khar.

An official told Dawn that two of the injured, who had suffered critical injuries, had been airlifted to Peshawar. No one claimed responsibility for the blast.

Later, the administration mounted a search for those behind the bomb attack and picked up several people.

On Sunday evening, security forces with the help of Bajaur Levies had defused an IED on a link road in Nawagai tehsil.

Meanwhile, officials said security forces had seized a huge cache of weapons and explosive material during a search operation in Mamond tehsil the other day.

He said the operation had been carried out on information from local people, adding that shells, rockets, grenades, bombs and hundreds of cartridges were recovered from different places.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2014