Pakistani legislator injured in blast

PESHAWAR - A legislator in Pakistan’s restive northwest was injured in a suspected terrorist blast here Wednesday but his condition is said to be out of danger, officials said.

Aurangzeb, a member of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), was leaving his home in Paharipur area of the capital Peshawar in his car when the blast occurred. The car was completely destroyed in the blast, which was set off by remote control. Four people, besides Aurangzeb, were injured.

A private TV channel, quoted the chief executive of the Lady Reading Hospital as saying that Aurangzeb was injured on the face but was out of danger.

His guard, however, was in critical condition.

Aurangzeb’s brother Alamzeib, who was a member of the NWFP assembly, was killed in a blast last year. Aurangzeb was elected in a by-election conducted to fill the vacancy.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani have condemned the blast and ordered an inquiry into it.

Peshawar was rocked by a series of blasts in 2009, with some 260 people being killed in the last quarter of the year alone.

In the most horrific of these bombings, 177 people, including a large number of women and children, were killed Oct 28 in a suicide attack at a crowded market in Peshawar.

On Jan 3, two roadside bombings in the NWFP killed at least six people, including a former lawmaker and an anti-Taliban tribal elder.