MARDAN: Eleven people were injured when a remote-controlled bomb went off at the busy Khwaja Ganj Bazaar here in the early hours of Tuesday.

The police’s preliminary investigations said an explosive device weighing 600-700 grams was planted alongside a small nullah in front of Khawaja Ganj Bazaar shops.

They said the people from urban and rural areas of Mardan were busy with Eid shopping in the bazaar when the blast occurred.

The rescue personnel and local residents shifted the injured to the district headquarters hospital.

Doctors at the hospital declared the condition of injured traffic policeman Abubakar and minor Yahya serious.

After the explosion, the police showed up in large numbers, cordoned off the area, blocked all roads leading to the blast site and collected evidence.

The police said they had launched a search operation in the surrounding areas and held some suspects for interrogation.

Mardan district has seen several terrorist activities during the last few months, including bomb explosion at Masti railway phatak near the house of ex-chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, suicide blast at the excise and taxation offices, target killing of policemen at the police lines, and suicide explosion at the regional Nadra offices.

RELIEF FOR CHITRAL: The district administration of Mardan will send relief goods to Chitral district soon after Eid holidays.

This was stated by Mardan deputy commissioner Imran Hamid Sheikh during a conference of local trade associations, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, private schools association, NGOs and other organisations at the DC offices here on Tuesday.

The conference was held to make a strategy for helping the flood-hit people in Chitral district.

The DC said his counterpart in Chitral told him that the flood-hit people in the district direly needed water pipes as the natural calamity had played havoc with destroyed water schemes.

The participants assured the DC of their cooperation for the purpose.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2016