Islamabad: At least 33 people were killed and 30 others injured in a gun attack carried out on passenger vans in the Kurram district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday, according to a Tehsil Headquarters Hospital official Dr Muhammad Ishaq.
The medical superintendent of the hospital Alizai said the injured were being referred to various hospitals in the district and some to Peshawar, Dawn reported.
A top provincial official said the toll could go up.
Meanwhile, Ahmady Shama Station House Officer Kaleem Shah told Dawn.com that 38 people were killed, including three women, and 11 were injured in the attack that took place in the Lower Kurram area.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the incident and expressed his condolences to the bereaved of the deceased.
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“Attacking innocent passengers is a cowardly and inhumane act,” he was quoted as saying in a post on X by Pakistan people's Party media cell.
He added that those responsible for the incident should be punished. He urged that timely medical aid be provided to the injured.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur directed a delegation comprising the chief secretary, provincial law minister and the area’s MNA and MPA to visit Kurram immediately.
The incident comes amid a sharp rise in the number of terrorist attacks in the restive Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Attacks escalated after the banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan outfit ended a fragile ceasefire agreement with the government in 2022 and vowed to target security forces.
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Last month, two terrorists were killed during an intelligence-based operation in KP’s North Waziristan district.
Twelve security personnel and six terrorists were killed after a checkpost was targeted in the Mali Khel area of KP’s Bannu, the military’s media affairs wing said a day ago.
