- The vehicle used in the blast was registered in Chakwal
- The car entered Islamabad from Rawalpindi packed with explosives
- It headed for a high-value target in the capital
Islamabad: A suicide blast in a suspected taxi car occurred in Islamabad’s I-10/4 sector. The earliest media reports described that as the police stopped the vehicle to search the car, the blast went off claiming one life. Five policeman were injured and one embraced martyrdom. The martyred policeman is identified as Adeel Hussain.
According to media sources, police official say the blast resulted from the explosives in vehicle. The incident is alleged to be perpetrated by a suicide attacker.
High Alert was issued soon after the incident for the twin cities. Scores of policeman gathered and enclosed the area. While emergency was imposed in PIMS Hospital.
DIG Islamabad Sohail Zafar Chattha spoke to media upon arriving at the site of incident. According to Deputy Inspector General of Police Sohail Zafar Chattha, the police spotted a “suspicious vehicle” with a man and a woman aboard at 10:15am in the area.
“When the police stopped the vehicle, the couple came out of the car. The long-haired man, while being checked by the officers, went inside the vehicle on some pretext and then detonated himself,” he said in a media briefing at the crime scene alongside Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon.
Chattha said a police officer of the Eagle Squad was martyred in the blast while four others officers were injured. He lauded the police for “saving Islamabad from a major foul play”.
Meanwhile, the joint executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Dr Iqbal Durrani, told Dawn that two bodies and five injured policemen had been brought to the hospital.
Separately, in an interview with Geo News, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah confirmed that “two terrorists” were killed in the blast.
The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released on Friday.
“The vehicle used in the blast was registered in Chakwal. The car entered Islamabad from Rawalpindi […] it was packed with explosives and headed for a high-value target in the capital,” he said.
Sanaullah added that had the car reached its target, it would have caused heavy losses.
Earlier in a tweet, the Islamabad police identified the slain officer as Head Constable Adeel Hussain. It said that terrorists had been targeting police for some time to demoralise law enforcement personnel.
This is a developing story, more updates to follow.
