Pakistan politician survives blast after visiting school attack victims

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A senior Pakistani politician who visited victims of a Taliban attack on a school that left 135 dead Tuesday, December 16, survived a roadside bomb blast on his way home, police said.

Amir Muqam, an advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former governor of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was returning home after visiting hospitalised victims of the school raid in Peshawar when a bomb blast went off near his vehicle. 

“A roadside bomb blast exploded as Muqam’s vehicle was passing by at Pish Takhar area of ring road at the outskirts of Peshawar,” senior police official Muhammad Ijaz Khan told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said Muqam’s driver and two guards were injured.

Faisal Shahzad, another senior police official confirmed the incident and said the driver and guards were in stable condition. 

Earlier in the day, Pakistani Taliban militants stormed a military-run school in the northwestern city in a deadly assault that killed 135 people, most of them students. 

Police officials said the combat operation was over however military personnel were carrying out a search operation in the building. 

The military spokesman said special forces have rescued more than a dozen staff and students from the school building. – Rappler.com