About 130 people have died in Pakistan in bombings and other terror attacks in several cities in the past week even as the country is trying to recover from unprecedented flooding that affected nearly a fifth of the country and took 1,600 lives.
On Monday morning, a suicide bomber reportedly rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the rear wall of the police station, killing nine policemen. There were over 45 police officials inside the police station at the time of the blast.
The police station, situated in a busy shopping area of the town, has been severely damaged. Nine civilians killed in the blast included five boys and four girls who were going to a school nearby.
Lakki Marwat is a frontier town in what was earlier the North West Frontier Province that has been renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The school and several other government buildings were also damaged.
Police said that several others were injured. “We’ll only be able to assess the damage completely once the debris are removed completely,” a police officer said.
Security forces have cordoned off the area. The injured were shifted to a hospital whose northern wing was also damaged by the blast.