Summary Police claim to have arrested a suspicious person from the area.
PESHAWAR (Web Desk / AFP) – A terrorism attempt was thwarted in Peshawar when Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police recovered a bomb near Gulbahar bus terminal on Thursday morning, Dunya News reported.
According to police, a suspected terrorist identified as Banaras Khan was caught planting a bomb on the roadside near the bus stand. Explosives weighing 3 to 4 kilograms were placed in a thermos.
"We caught a man planting a bomb at Peshawar Bus Stand," senior police official Rokhan Zeb told AFP.
A bomb disposal team safely defused it, he said, adding that some 2,000 people were near the bus stand when the device was found.
"A big disaster has been averted due to police alertness, had the bomb exploded it could have killed and wounded scores of people," he said.
The incident comes at a time when Pakistan is observing a day of national mourning for the 21 people killed when heavily armed gunmen stormed Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on Wednesday.
Flags are flying at half-mast on all government buildings inside and outside the country while a prayer ceremony will be held in the capital Islamabad.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed a "ruthless" response to the massacre and ordered security forces to hunt those behind attack on the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, where students were targeted with grenades and automatic weapons.
The assault bore a chilling resemblance to a 2014 massacre at a school in nearby Peshawar which shocked the nation and prompted an escalation of a national crackdown on extremism.
Security forces killed all four gunmen in the university attack, which was claimed by a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction but branded "un-Islamic" by the umbrella group’s leadership, who also vowed to hunt down those responsible.
The majority of victims were laid to rest late Wednesday according to Muslim tradition, including Assistant Professor Syed Hamid Husain who was buried in his home village of Swabi as those who knew him paid tribute.
Security palpably improved in 2015, which saw the least number of deaths from militant violence since the formation of the TTP in 2007 -- but critics have repeatedly warned the government is not taking long-term steps to tackle the underlying scourge of extremism.
The Bacha Khan attack, which Amnesty International said could be branded a war crime, earned global condemnation including from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and neighbouring India.
