Islamabad, Apr 25 (EFE).- The number of people killed in twin blasts at a police station in northwestern Pakistan climbed to 17 and the wounded to 70, police said Tuesday.
“The death toll has reached 17 including 9 policemen, 3 citizens and 5 under-custody suspected terrorists,” Swat District’s police chief, Shafi Ullah, told EFE.
More than 70 people, including police officers, were wounded, out of which eight are critical, he added.
The explosions at the Counter Terrorism Department police station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Swat District on Monday evening were caused by a short circuit at the ammunition store which caught fire, according to preliminary investigations.
The district’s police chief said that a large quantity of ammunition and weapons were destroyed in the explosions.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, which take place amid a rise in terrorism-related incidents in the country since the Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the ideological brothers of the Afghan Taliban, has intensified its attacks in the country, especially against the security forces, after ending a ceasefire with the government in November last year.
According to the annual Global Terrorism Index, Pakistan recorded the second largest surge in terror-related deaths worldwide in 2022 – 643 -, an increase of 120 percent over the 292 deaths recorded in the previous year. EFE
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