Peshawar, Apr 19: At least 24 people including a child and police officials were killed Monday in bombings hours apart at a high school and a crowded market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials said.
 The attacks take the number of people killed in bombings in Pakistan's troubled northwest to 73 in three days, after weekend suicide strikes bearing the hallmarks of Taliban militants left 49 people dead in the city of Kohat.
 As dusk fell Monday at Peshawar's bustling Qissa Khawani Bazaar, a suicide bomber walked into the crowd and detonated explosives.
 An AFP reporter at the scene saw scattered shoes, human limbs and destroyed cars.
 “Twenty-three people were killed including three police officials. At least 27 people have been admitted to the hospital,” senior police official Imran Kishwar told AFP. Senior provincial minister Bashir Bilour confirmed the toll.
 Bomb disposal squad chief Shafqat Malik told reporters that the explosion was caused by a bomber wearing a vest packed with six to eight kilogrammes (13 to 17 pounds) of explosives and pellets and ball-bearings.
 “We have recovered the head and legs of the attacker,” he said.
 The blast struck soon after protesters rallying against soaring inflation and crippling power shortages had left the area, police officials said.
 It also came hours after an eight-year-old boy was killed and at least ten people were injured in a bombing outside a high school in Peshawar.
 The latter explosion, in Boharh Bazaar, slightly damaged a parked car and two shops, an AFP reporter at the scene said, while local television stations showed footage of school text books scattered outside the gates of the building.
 “It was an IED (improvised explosive device) planted near a shop. It was a timed device,” senior police official Muhammad Karim Khan told AFP.
 “Schoolchildren were the target.”Doctor Khizer Hayat, chief of the Khyber Teaching Hospital, said the victim was an eight-year-old boy. Another police official, Sher Akbar Khan, said the bomb targetted the Police Public School at the end of the school day.
 Police officials did not say who had planted the bomb in the city plagued by Taliban attacks.
AFP

Lastupdate on : Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST