RAWALPINDI: In a second blast in the garrison city of Rawalpindi this month, over two dozen people including women and children were injured in the busy Ganj Mandi area on Sunday.

The explosion, which took place at around 2pm just a few hundred metres from the Ganj Mandi police station and close to a water filtration plant, also damaged a car.

Shortly after the explosion, police, rescue services and counterterrorism department officials rushed to the blast site, cordoned off the area, shifted the injured to hospital and started collecting evidences from the site.

Police did not rule out the possibility of a ‘terrorism act’ but said investigation was under way to determine the exact cause of explosion.

According to the rescue services and counterterrorism department, 25 people, including two women and three children, were injured in the blast. Four of them were given first aid on the spot while others were taken to the Rawalpindi district headquarters hospital.

The emergency services quoted eyewitnesses as saying that two motorcyclists had hurled a hand grenade at passers-by and those gathered around a shoe vendor before speeding away.

Speaking to Dawn, a bomb disposal expert said: “Besides a small crater, the investigators have found a pin used in the hand grenade from the site.”

The official said it was a locally made grenade having ‘high intensity explosive’.

According to a spokesman for the CTD, a hand grenade was lobbed among shoe selling vendors in front of Ganj Mandi police station at around 2pm. He said 13 people sustained injuries.

He said the bomb disposal squad had cleared the area while CTD operations and crime-scene team were collecting evidence after which an FIR would be registered.

It was a second blast in over a week and fifth attack in the garrison city this year, while no group has so far claimed responsibility for these explosions.

Nabeel Ahmed, who works at a goods transport company, told Dawn that he with his elder brother rushed to the scene where the injured were screaming immediately after the explosion. He said: “My cousin Mohammad Munir Ahmed, 40, was also injured in the blast. He was removed to the DHQ hospital where his condition was stable but badly injured.”

Later, Regional Police Offi­­cer Imran Ahmer and City Police Officer (CPO) Moham­mad Ahsan Younas visited the site where they were briefed about the explosion.

While talking to media persons, the CPO said two explosions had occurred in Rawalpindi during the past eight days and the possibility of terrorism could not be ruled out in the latest attack. He explained that there had been intelligence reports about the possibility of terrorist activities, “but it was not specifically related to targeting vendors”.

Another security official said the motive for the attack could be to scare traders for extortion, but it would be clear after completion of the investigations.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2020