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Seven Killed as Rickshaw Bomb Explodes in Pakistani City
ISLAMABAD, Aug 11 (News Agencies) - At least seven people were killed when a powerful bomb planted in a rickshaw exploded in the eastern city of Gujrat Saturday in the worst "terrorist" act in Pakistan this year, police said.
Bodies were tossed some 66 feet from the exploded three-wheel cycle, witness Waheed Khan told the French news agency AFP by telephone from Gujrat, 100 miles east of Pakistan's capital.
"Three bodies were recovered from the lawns of the municipal committee while two others were found on the roof of a nearby house," Khan said.
Human limbs littered the scene and the street was splashed with blood, he added.
The dead included five members of the same family who had been traveling in the rickshaw.
Witnesses said the rickshaw was blown to pieces and metal splinters hit a number of passing pedestrians.
Saturday's blast, the worst in Pakistan this year, came as preparations were underway across the country for Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday, although police did not say it was related to the upcoming event.
"We have rushed police and ambulances to the site of the blast," deputy inspector general of police Rahim Rajput told AFP.
"[The] preliminary probe says it was a plastic bomb which was planted in the rickshaw," Rajput added.
"It is an act of terrorism, nothing else at the moment."
As yet, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, a BBC online report said.
Residents and police said the bomb went off as the rickshaw moved along the busy Ram Talai road in the Nawabpur neighborhood, in a thickly populated area of the city. It exploded close to the local government offices and a private school.
Rajput said the device carried more than two pounds of explosives.
The victims included a woman and two children, Edhi rescue agency worker Abdul Samad said.
He said 10 people were injured and three of them, including the rickshaw driver, were in critical conditions.
So far this year Pakistan has been rocked by some 55 bombs attacks usually targeting markets, cinemas, passenger buses and crowded places.
Until Saturday only nine people had been killed and 80 injured in the blasts, officials said.
The government has blamed agents of the intelligence agencies of rival India for bomb blasts and other "acts of terrorism."
India denies the charge and blames Pakistan for what it calls "cross-border terrorism" in war torn Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan state that has caused two of the three wars between the South Asian neighbors.
Last month, the country also witnessed several high-profile assassinations and the military-led government vowed to launch "targeted searches" to recover millions of illegal arms.
President Pervez Musharraf has said his government was determined to crack down on "extremism" and the gun culture that was fueling bloody sectarian, ethnic and political violence in the country.
Sectarian violence, involving activists from hardline factions of the majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities, has claimed some 300 lives in recent years.
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