PESHAWAR: A police official was killed and two others were injured when an improvised explosive device targeting a police patrol exploded on the outskirts of the provincial capital on Thursday evening.

The incident took place on Charsadda Road in the limits of the Khazana police station.

SSP (operation) Abbas Majeed Marwat told Dawn that it was a roadside IED attack, which targeted a police mobile van on a police check post in Ghari Sohbat Khan area.

He said the blast took place at around 7:15pm when the mobile was taking the personnel to the relevant police station from the check post.

The SSP said police inspector Qayyum Dad Khan died in the blast and two suffered injuries.

He said apparently, the explosive device weighed around four kilogrammes.

Also in the day, three people suffered injuries in the gas blast in a commercial plaza of Hashtnagri area in Peshawar.

TRAFFIC COP HURT: A traffic police constable was injured in a bomb blast at a railway crossing on the main Mardan-Nowshera Road here on Thursday.

The police said injured Irshad Khan was diverting heavy transport vehicles at Masiti Phatak to Mardan Bypass Road at the time of the explosion.

They said the bomb blasted by remote control was planted along the roadside.

The police said the Rescue-1122 personnel took the injured policeman to the Mardan Medical Complex.

They said the blast occurred around 400 meters away from the house of ANP leader and former chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti. The bomb disposal unit officials said 500 grammes of explosives were used in the homemade bomb.

The police personnel showed up at the blast site in large numbers soon after the blast and began search operation in the area. The Counter Terrorism Department registered FIR against unidentified miscreants and began investigation.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2016