Pakistan: CCTV footage captures deadly bus explosion
CCTV footage showed the moment a bus carrying government employees exploded in Peshawar on 16 March, killing at least 15 people. The footage was filmed by the security monitor of a shop near the blast site. The explosion took place on a main road after the bus picked up government workers from districts surrounding Peshawar and was taking them to work in the city.
Senior police official Mohammad Kashif said 35 people were also wounded in the blast. A hospital official said the death toll was likely to rise. It happened in an area where Pakistani security forces have stepped up their fight against the Taliban and other militant groups along the border with Afghanistan. This latest incident follows the massacre of 134 children at an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014.
Bomb disposal squad officiers said 10kg of explosives were planted on the bus and further investigations were under way. The wounded were taken to Peshawar's main Lady Reading Hospital, hospital spokesman Jamil Shah said.
The number of attacks has reduced since the government crackdown following the 2014 school attack and the Taliban has been squeezed into small pockets of territory. However, militant groups remain able to launch sporadic attacks on security forces and civilian targets. Two Pakistani employees of the US consulate in Peshawar and some soldiers were killed by a bomb while on a drug-eradication mission earlier this month.
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