The Pakistani authorities on Tuesday raised the death toll to 17 and the wounded to 70 in two simultaneous explosions at an anti-terrorist police station in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which according to the initial investigation occurred due to a short circuit in a room where ammunition was kept.
The two explosions were recorded around 09:00 pm local time on April 24 at the Anti-Terrorism Department police station in the town of Kabal, located in the Swat district.
“The number of victims has reached 17, including nine police officers, three civilians and five detainees suspected of being terrorists, while the number of wounded rises to 70, of whom eight are in serious condition.“, a police officer from the Swat district, Shafi Ullah, told EFE.
According to the preliminary investigation, a short circuit, which took place yesterday evening at the Anti-Terrorism Department (CTD) police station in the town of Kabal, caused a fire in the ammunition room.
“There was a large number of weapons in storage that have been destroyed,” Ullah said.
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Despite appearing to be an accidental event, the explosions come at a time of increasing insurgent attacks blamed mainly on the Pakistani Taliban group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch separatist groups, whose violence has been on the rise in the country since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The situation deteriorated further since last December, when the Pakistani group announced the end of the ceasefire reached a month earlier with Islamabad, which it accused of breaching its commitments in peace negotiations.
According to the annual report of the Global Terrorism Index, Pakistan recorded the second highest increase in terrorism-related deaths worldwide in 2022, registering 643 deaths that year, which represented an increase of 120% compared to the 292 deaths of the previous year.
EFE
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