KOHAT, April 17 At least 41 people were killed and over 60 injured when two burqa-clad suicide bombers struck a crowd of internally displaced persons collecting relief supplies at a registration centre for IDPs near here on Saturday. A reporter of Pakistan Television was among the dead.

Eyewitnesses and officials said people were standing in a queue at the centre in the Kacha Pakha area when the first suicide bomber blew himself up at 11.55am.

A second suicide bomber struck minutes later when people gathered around the dead and the injured.

Kohat's DPO Dilawar Khan Bangash said all the 41 bodies had been identified. Among the victims were people from Orakzai Agency and a few villages of Kohat, he added.

The registration centre was housed in a building of a union council in Sherkot, 35km west of Kohat. The injured were taken to a government-run hospital. The hospital referred 10 critically injured to Peshawar.

Preliminary investigations said that both the bombers were aged between 18 and 20 years and each was carrying eight kilograms of explosives.

The proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attacks.

After the blasts, security personnel cordoned off the area and traffic on the highway was suspended.

Sources said body parts of bombers had been collected from the site and sent to the hospital.

After the blasts two other registration camps set up in Jarma area were closed for an indefinite period.

Azmat Bangash, a correspondent of the state television, was killed in the first blast.

The sources said that Azmat had been on the hit list of militants since a footage of Mullah Toofan was shown on a private TV channel in which he lashed out some influential people of Orakzai Agency.

Agencies add The United Nations said it had decided to suspend work of helping displaced people in Kohat and neighbouring Hangu as a result of the attack.

The registration point - essentially a small building in a dusty field - may have been hit to persuade people not to have any contact with the local administration or foreign relief groups.

An AP photographer at the distribution point in Kacha Pakha saw pools of blood, body parts and caps and shoes littering the dusty floor.

Akhtar Jan, 35, a taxi driver, said he heard a huge blast soon after dropping passengers at the camp. “I rushed to the blast site and put a wounded man into my cab. And when I went to bring another blast victim I heard another blast,” he said.

“I fell unconscious and don't know how I was brought here,” said Jan, who received injuries to his head and abdomen.