20 killed, 70 hurt in market blast near Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: A bomb exploded in a crowded market on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday, killing 20 people and injuring about 70 in the deadliest attack in the city in years.

The blast followed weeks of preliminary talks with the main Islamist militant grouping battling the state, the Pakistani Taliban, who last week extended a ceasefire until April 10.

The Pakistani Taliban denied responsibility for the early morning bomb that targeted a throng of traders assembled for fruit auctions.

Severed body parts and bloodstained clothes were scattered throughout stalls at the market between Islamabad and its twin city of Rawalpindi. Police said the bomb was hidden in a box of guava fruit.

“Body parts went everywhere and even hit other people on the head,” said Shaheen, a market worker who only gave one name.

Bloody sandals lay amid boxes of straw and squashed fruit in the mud. Police waved metal detectors over boxes while dazed vendors sat in the wreckage.

Javed Akram Qazi, vice chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, said 18 bodies had been brought in to his hospital.

Another hospital had received two bodies, and about 70 people were injured, said minister of health Saira Afzal Tarar.

The Pakistan Taliban condemned the attack and blamed it on “hidden hands”.

“Such attacks are wrong and against Islamic law.” The Taliban regularly bomb schools, marketplaces and public transport. Authorities say they have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis.

Information minister Pervaiz Rashid hailed the Taliban’s denial of responsibility although the militants have in the past denied attacks they, or allies linked to the loose Pakistani Taliban umbrella group of factions, have nevertheless been held responsible for.