PESHAWAR: Six members of a family, including women and children, were killed and one suffered injuries when a powerful explosion ripped through the fourth floor of a hotel here in the wee hours of Friday.

Ruling out the possibility of terrorism, the police claimed that the blast was caused by gas leak.

An official of the Hashtnagri police station told Dawn that the blast took place inside the Room 408 of the Afandi Hotel, which was located opposite the Gulbahar police station on GT Road.

Police rule out terrorism, claim gas leak caused explosion

He said the blast badly damaged the room, shattered the building’s glass exterior and threw loads of debris over the cars parked on the roadside.

A spokesperson for the Rescue 1122 said the emergency service received a call about the explosion and resultant fire at around 2:50am and its firefighters doused the flames and shifted the injured to the hospital.

Shahid Mehmood, a pharmaceutical company’s employee, who stayed on the hotel’s third floor, told reporters that he woke up after a powerful blast shook the building to its core.

“The blast was so powerful that it shattered my room’s door. I thought it’s caused by a powerful earthquake,” he said, adding that he and others got out of the building with great difficult.

“I later learned that a blast took place inside a room on the fourth floor,” he said.

SP city circle Shahzada Kokab Farooq said apparently, the blast was caused by gas leak.

He said the police rushed to the site after the blast and cordoned it off, while the bomb disposal unit’s personnel scanned the site to ascertain the nature of the blast.

Mr Farooq said the blast killed six people and injured one.

He said the deceased included Mehran, 22, Najmina, 50, Nargis, 25, Rukhmela, 5, Aasaish and Kamran, and the injured person was Aamir.

The SP said the blast victims were members of a family, who had come to the city from Thall area of Hangu district on Thursday to see a doctor.

He said the injured Aamir was referred to an Islamabad hospital for burns treatment.

Mr Farooq said four cars parked in front of the hotel were damaged after the debris from the fourth floor rained down on them after the blast.

The police remained tightlipped about the possible reason of the blast for several hours.

Mr Farooq justified it insisting that the confirmation of the kind of blast took little time as swabs were sent to trace the explosive material, which turned out to be negative.

BDU head AIG Shafqat Malik ruled out the possibility terrorism in the accident.

He told reporters said the unit had collected samples from the blast site for forensic analysis, which came negative for explosive traces.

He said most probably the blast was caused by gas leak.

The police said they investigated the case under Section 174 of the CrPC and had yet to lodge an FIR.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2018