MARDAN: A man was killed and 22 other people were injured in a suicide attack on the Excise and Taxation office here on Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses and police said the suicide bomber opened fire on security guards, entered the E&T office on busy Mall Road in the cantonment area and blew himself up.

Police said Naik Zaman, 35, who hailed from Nowshera district, succumbed to his injuries at the Mardan district hospital.

Personnel of Rescue-1122 and local residents took 13 injured people to the district hospital and 10 others to the Medical Complex in Mardan.

Dr Malik Riaz Khan, the medical superintendent of the district hospital, said journalist Yousaf Mayar and ASI Siyar Khan, who received critical injuries, had been referred to the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, while the rest of the injured were out of danger.

District Police Officer Faisal Shehzad told newsmen that the suicide bomber, who was about 20 years old, carried 8-10kgs of explosives.

Talking to media men, the Inspector General of the Bomb Disposal Squad, Shafqat Malik, said the preliminary investigations had revealed that quality explosives had been used in the blast.

He claimed that sufficient evidence had been collected from the blast site which would help police to reach the militant network involved in such terrorist activities.

“I saw a youngster firing on security guards with a pistol before entering the building and then heard a huge explosion after a short pause,” Momen Khan, owner of a photo-stat shop located near the E&T office, told Dawn.

Abdur Rasheed, an excise inspector, who also suffered injuries and was under treatment at the district hospital, told Dawn that he was in his office when the suicide bomber opened fire and then blew himself up.

Sources said 11 officials of the Excise and Taxation department had been injured in the suicide attack.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2016