Attack on Christian colony in Pakistan leaves 5 dead

Police said all other attorneys, judges and other court personnel had been taken to safety, and rescue officials said between 30 and 40 people had been taken to various hospitals for treatment.

In the neighboring city of Peshawar, one bystander was killed and three members of Pakistani security forces were injured earlier in the day in an attack on a Christian neighborhood, according to the Pakistan’s military.

Two of the attackers detonated their suicide jackets while two others were killed by security forces, officials were quoted as saying by the Dawn News.

Army Lieutenant General Asim Saleem Bajwa said the attack was quickly repulsed. One of them went into a church, but no-one was there at the time.

Five persons including two Frontier Corps personnel, one policeman and two civilian guards were injured in the attack. The swift response from security teams was credited with preventing more deaths.

Authorities said a suicide bomber shot his way through the main gate leading to the district court in the city of Mardan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The president of the Mardan Bar Association says he believes the lawyers were the target of the attack because they are “an important part of democracy, and terrorists are opposed to democracy”. A second policeman opened fire at the attacker, who detonated his explosives.

Mardan Bar Association president Amir Hussain said four of the fatalities were lawyers.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which has targeted Christians in the past, claimed responsibility. The official said the attackers might have been attempting to enter an adjacent security installation, by exploiting weaker security arrangements in the residential area.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said even after the Pakistani military claimed to have limit the number of attacks in Pakistan, the armed groups still manage to operate in the country.

Christians are a tiny minority in this majority Muslim nation. Last month, a blast in southern Balochistan province capital Quetta killed more than 70 people, almost wiping out the senior lawyers of the city.

Talban faction named Jamat-ul-Ahrar have accepted responsibility of attack on Christian Colony Peshawar.

He tweeted: “Terrorist attacked Christian Colony Warsak Road, Peshawar”.