Summary District police chief Faisal Shahzad said the suicide bomber was riding a motorbike.
PESHAWAR (Web Desk / AFP) – During probe into Tuesday’s blast at Nadra office in Mardan, the authorities have sent DNA sample of suspected suicide attacker to laboratory for identification, Dunya News reported.
Anti-terrorism department has also registered an F.I.R against unknown terrorist and his facilitators on the request of Station House Office (SHO) of City Police Station.
The investigation team has recorded witnesses’ statements and gathered evidence from the blast site. Chasis and engine number of motorcycle used by the bomber have also been obtained.
According to sources, the motorbike is unregistered.
At least 26 people were killed and more than 50 sustained injuries after a suicide bomber crashed into the main gate of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) office in the town of Mardan.
"Apparently the target was the queue as there were around 400 people standing there," District police chief Faisal Shahzad told AFP.
Some of those critically wounded were taken to the main Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar city.
Eyewitness Nasir Khan, a 29-year-old labourer who suffered a shrapnel injury to his right leg, told AFP: "I was standing in the queue waiting for my turn as I had gone to renew my identity card when I heard someone shouting Allahu Akbar (God is great) and then I fell to the ground.
"The air was filled with smoke and dust and I could not see anything.
"When the dust settled and I stood up, it looked as though someone had butchered the people in the line. There was only blood and flesh in the row where people were previously standing."
CRACKDOWN ON MILITANCY
Pakistan has been battling an insurgency since 2004 after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan caused fighters to flee across the border, where they began to foment unrest.
More than 27,000 civilians and security personnel have died in attacks since that time, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a monitoring site.
But overall levels of extremist-linked violence have dropped dramatically this year, with 2015 on course for the fewest deaths since 2007 -- the year the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group was formed.
Analysts have credited the fall to military operations against the Taliban in the tribal areas of North Waziristan and Khyber where they are headquartered, as well as in the country’s largest city of Karachi.
Authorities have also taken steps to shut down insurgents’ sources of funding and arrested thousands for inciting hatred.
The crackdown came in the aftermath of a Taliban school massacre in December 2014 in which more than 150 people, mainly schoolchildren, were killed.
