At least 22 were killed and another 80-plus wounded when a bomb detonated in a busy fruit-and-vegetable market just outside the the Pakistani capital city of Islamabad on Wednesday morning.
The blast was massive, and city police said the explosive material had been placed in crates of guava fruit transported into the market area for sale, The Washington Post reported.
Doctors at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences said the death toll is more than 20 and that some of the most critical of the 80 or more who were injured were taken to other hospitals for critical care treatment, The Post said.
“I had gone to the market for buying fruits when the explosion took place,” said one eyewitness, Murad Khan, 40, in The Post. “It was huge, and I fell on the ground by its intensity. When I regained senses, I saw dead bodies, blood on the ground, injured people crying for help, and others running here and there in panic.”
The political backdrop of the blast is that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is talking peace with the Pakistan Taliban.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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