At least eight people were killed when militants attacked a power grid station in restive Peshawar city of Pakistan.
Islamabad, April 2/Nationalturk – A group of militants attacked a power grid station in restive Peshawar city of Pakistan last evening, killing eight people.
“Over 40 well armed militants attacked power grid station at Sheikh Mohammadi area in Peshawar last night. They fired dozens of rockets towards the grid station and blew up the walls and barged inside,” Pakistan’s newspaper The Dawn quoted Station House Officer (SHO) of Budh Berh Police Station Granullah as saying.
Security officials said after barging inside the grid station, the militants held the staff and police guards hostage and planted several remote-controlled bombs.
“Later, the militants detonated these bombs, causing massive explosions. Due to the explosions, fire erupted inside the grid station engulfing the machinery and transformers. The control room of the grid was completely destroyed,” they said adding immediately after the militant attack electricity went off and whole area was plunged into darkness.
4 still missing
They said before leaving the spot, the attackers kidnapped 12 people including police men and Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) employees. The bodies of all the eight kidnapped were later recovered by police.
The dead include five PESCO employees and three community police personnel who were on guard when militants stormed the grid station. Four employees of PESCO are still missing.
After the militant attack, large numbers of police and paramilitary soldiers rushed to the spot and launched a massive combing and search operation around the grid station area to flush out the militants responsible for the attack. However, no arrests were reported.
The experts of bombs disposal squad were rushed to the spot to defuse some of the bombs that had not exploded.
“Police investigations are going on,” a police official said.
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Faiz Ahmad / NationalTurk Pakistan News
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