UPPER DIR, Oct 9: Twelve people, four schoolgirls among them, were killed and 10 others injured when a roadside bomb hit a prison van and a school bus in Upper Dir district on Thursday.

Police and hospital sources said that three policemen and five prisoners were among the dead.

The prisoners were being taken from a court in Lower Dir’s Timergara area to Upper Dir when the remote-controlled bomb went off in the Khwago Oba area, some five kilometres south of Dir Khass, the district headquarters. The school bus, which was behind the prison van, was hit by shrapnel.

Seven policemen and three prisoners were also injured.

The explosion was so intense that the van plunged into the river and a portion of the road was damaged. Body parts, shoes and shredded clothes were scattered all over the place.

The girls were returning from their school. Moving scenes were witnessed when the bodies of three girls belonging to the same family were brought to their home. The policemen killed in the blast were identified as Noor Nawab, Pir and Khoidad. Four prisoners were identified as Badshah Rehman, Jehanzeb (brothers), Tazamin and Sajidullah.