Terror swept across the city when at least 13 people were killed and dozens of other injured in two bomb blasts that obliterated the crowded areas of NWFP’s capital city Peshawar, Saturday evening, May 16, 2009. The deceased also include children and women.

The more horrific of the two blasts happened in the Barisco area, near Asiya Gate (Bhana Marhi), where a car bomb went off, at around 2:30 pm, killing a dozen people and leaving more than 35 wounded. Investigators told news sources that the bomb consisted of an assemblage of 20 mortar shells, planted in an Alto car, which had been parked near an Internet café in the densely populated area. But the real target of the blast appears to be a meeting that was in session in the local administrator Fahem-ur-Rehman’s Motor Bargain Center situated next to the cafe. Heart-rending details of young people and children, who fell prey to the blast, appeared in the local newspapers.

The second bomb blast rocked the crowded Gora Bazar, one of Peshawar’s busiest markets in Saddar (Cant.), around 8 pm. A minor girl is reported to have died while several people wounded in the blast. Reportedly, the bomb that went off in Gora Bazar had been hidden under a stool that rested outside in front of a row of shops in Jinnah Street N0.1, close to Nauman Garments. Some of the injured people came from a displaced family of Malakand. A number of political leaders of the country, including the President and the Prime Minister, have condemned the blasts.