Kohat blast used 869 kg explosives, killed 23

KOHAT/PESHAWAR: The 18 September attack on the old police lines in Kohat involved 869 kilogrammes of explosives and killed 23 people, including 17 security personnel, according to a bomb disposal unit report compiled by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and sent to the Central Police Office in Peshawar.

The report, cited by Express News, said the blast crater measured 6.6 feet by 11 feet and was 4.6 feet deep. Investigators assessed the nature and quantity of the explosive material and identified the vehicle used in the attack. The report said two improvised explosive devices were recovered from the ground floor of the Special Branch building and a suicide jacket fitted with four IEDs from the first floor. The area was declared safe after a clearance operation.

Inspector General of Police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zulfiqar Hameed said an explosives-laden vehicle first rammed the outer wall of the old police lines, after which a suicide bomber and seven armed militants tried to enter the compound. Police later said some attackers entered the Special Branch building and were killed in a joint operation by police, the Elite Force, the Counter Terrorism Department and security forces. Eight attackers were killed; the operation continued overnight and the area was cleared by Saturday morning, a provincial government spokesman said.

BBC Urdu reported that among the dead was Superintendent of Police Akbar Mohammad Shinwari, described by relatives as the first officer from Hathian village in Mardan. He had served in Dir, Bajaur and Swat during the years of militant violence and received threats, which his family said he rarely discussed. Weeks earlier, his younger brother Javed Akbar, a motorway police sub-inspector, was killed by a dump truck on 15 July. Akbar Shinwari's nephew Tufail Akbar said his uncle had responded to that loss by saying: "I had kept my life on the palm of my hand. But I survived and my brother, friend, companion and sympathiser was killed."

The same BBC Urdu report told the story of Muhammad Luqman, a 37-year-old laboratory technician and Alkhidmat Foundation volunteer who was killed in the mosque along with his young son Abdullah and nephew Asad. Luqman had picked up the children from school and stopped for Friday prayers. His friend Muhammad Maskeen, who was lightly wounded, said he lost consciousness in the blast and later saw the bodies being brought to the hospital. Luqman left a widow and three daughters, the youngest nine months old.