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Foreign hand in Peshawar blast: investigators

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province Akram Khan Durrani and police investigators are pointing to a "foreign hand" in last week's bomb blast in Peshawar that killed nine people and injured over 30.

Mr. Durrani vowed to nab those behind the bombing on the last Friday before Id, describing it as an act by those who were "neither human nor Muslim." No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, the fifth attack in the NWFP capital in recent weeks. But Mr. Durrani said "a foreign hand is behind it."

The Daily Times quoted a senior police official of the province as saying that "Afghan and Indian intelligence collaboration in Kabul" could have been behind the blast.

The newspaper speculated about the possibility of the involvement of others, caused by a crude explosive device fitted under a pushcart in a market place.

Paying back Pakistan

Describing the involvement of the Afghan intelligence agency as a "very credible" possibility with the motive of paying back Pakistan for cross-border Taliban incursions that Islamabad denies but Kabul continues to allege, the newspaper also drew the net closer home to include a Taliban leader from nearby Khyber and Shias in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

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