A powerful explosion on Sunday destroyed Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada’s office in Pakistan’s Attock city, leaving him and seven others dead, media reports said.
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According to police officials, at least 100 people were present at Khanzada’s office and many of them were buried underneath the rubble. The condition of three was stated to be critical.
Saeed said there were up to 40 people in the compound when a suicide bomber blew himself up, causing the entire roof slab to fall in one piece. As a result of the blast, roof of the house caved in burying the minister and about 30 other people.
Salman Rafiq, provincial health adviser for Punjab, said Khanzada had died.
“As per initial reports Shuja Khanzada is critically injured and still trapped under debris”, Punjab Home Department Secretary Azam Suleman told The Express Tribune.
The attacker struck when a local jirga (tribal council) was going on at the “hujra” (male guesthouse) of the home minster in Shadi Khan town of Attock district.
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad has also reached the scene to supervise rescue operation. The minister’s body was recovered from under the rubble as the building’s hall collapsed in the bomb blast. “Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi, Tehreek-j-Taliban and Jamaat-ul-Antat” have claimed responsibility for the attack and it has now emerged that Khanzada had been received threats from Al-Qaeda.
LeJ leader Malik Ishaq and his two sons were killed in late July by the security forces.
IG Police further said the involvement of some banned organization in attack on Shuja Khanzada cannot be rejected.
Police sources told PTI that adequate security was not provided to the minister at his Attock residence.
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Punjab CM Shahbaz, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa CM Pervaiz Khattak, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Speaker KP Assembly Asad Qasir as well as several federal, Punjab and KP ministers attended the prayers. As the death toll rises to 20, he said the Home Minister was a “bold officer” and his death would not “go to waste” in the country’s attempts to cleanse Pakistan of terrorism.
