MANSEHRA, April 29: Two employees of the Barani Area Development Project (BADP) of the NWFP Government were injured in a bomb blast in their office in Kohistan on Saturday, residents and police said on Sunday.

They said that the explosive device had been planted on the premises of BADP offices and it went off around 4 pm, injuring two employees, Hazratullah and Janbaz Khan. Both were taken to the Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad for treatment.

Sources said that local clerics had delivered sermons during Friday prayers urging the faithful to attack offices of NGOs who inducted women staff for their project activities in the remote district.

The clerics asked the people to restrict the entry of female staff of NGOs into their houses, saying these women were urging local women to go for family planning against their husbands’ will, which was a sin. “Attack the offices and workers of such NGOs who brought such women to our areas to spread obscenity,” the clerics were quoted as having said in the sermons.

The sources said that two partner NGOs of the BADP had inducted four female employees for their health and education projects but the local clerics objected to this and asked them to expel the women.

The district police officer, Kohistan, Alam Zeb Khan, told Dawn by telephone on Sunday that the police had registered a case under the Explosives Act and had started investigating.

He said that two watchmen of the BADP office were interrogated in this connection as they were not present at the time of the explosion.

He said: “We hope that no terrorist outfit is behind the bomb explosion as it seems that this is an act of those elements who do not want NGOs, especially female staff, to work in the district as, traditionally, they are against the working of women in the area.”

He said that the police had also called the clerics for interrogation who had delivered speeches against the NGO’s female staff.

He said that pieces of the bomb were sent to Peshawar for laboratory analysis and its report was expected within a few days.