Five people, including two women and a foreigner, were killed and four injured in a bomb blast at UN's World Food Programme office in Islamabad on Monday, police said.
Senior Superintendent of Police Tahir Alam Khan said the dead included Gul Mukhtar, a receptionist, Farzana Barkat, an assistant at WFP and an Iraqi national, Boton Ali.
Police said it was a well-planned blast which took place at the office near the reception at 12 noon.
“We are getting the list of employees and visitors to investigate everything properly,” the SSP said. As many as 100 employees work in the office.
Asked whether it was a parcel bomb, he said, “We are still in the process of investigation and every thing would be checked properly.”
Interior minister Rehman Malik also confirmed four Pakistanis and one Iraqi national were killed in the blast.
The blast raises questions as to how the bomber managed to evade tight security at the heavily fortified office of the World Food Program. Monday's blast could also hamper the work of WFP and other aid agencies assisting Pakistanis displaced by army offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban in their strongholds close to the Afghan border.
The blast shattered windows in the lobby of the compound in an upmarket residential area of Islamabad and left victims lying on the ground in pools of blood, witnesses said.
“There was a huge bang and something hit me. I fell on the floor bleeding,'' said Adam Motiwala, an information officer at the U.N. agency who was hospitalized with injuries to his head, leg and ribs.
Police official Bin Yamin said the attacker, who was between 22 and 26 years old, detonated his explosives in the lobby, killing three people, including an Iraqi working for the WFP. The two other dead were Pakistani women. Several others were injured, two of them critically, the WFP said in a statement.
“This is a terrible tragedy for WFP, and for the whole humanitarian community in Pakistan,'' said WFP Deputy Executive Director, Amir Abdulla, speaking from the agency's headquarters in Rome.
