PESHAWAR: A massive blast outside a hotel in the Qissa Khwani bazar here on Tuesday evening killed at least nine people and injured 42 others, reports quoting eyewitnesses said.
The blast took place outside Pak hotel in Kocha-e-Risaldar near an Imambargah. Preliminary reports said women and children were among the victims.
Police officer Rizwan Khan said that the hotel is frequented mostly by Shias who visit Imambargah Alamdar next door.
Local police said it was a suicide attack and bomber detonated himself outside the crowded hotel.
Emergency services and law enforcement personnel rushed to the site of the incident. The injured have been shifted to Lady Reading Hospital for treatment.
Earlier in the day terrorists gunned down a prominent Shia leader in the same bazar sparking protests outside the hospital where his body was taken.
The killing comes just weeks after another Shia scholar was gunned down in the same bazar.
Haji Sardar Ali was shot dead in the morning in Kissa Khwani bazaar.
Ali headed the local branch of the Tehrik Jafaria, a Shia rights movement.
Scholar Allama Alim Al-Musavi was shot while walking to the mosque in the same bazaar on January 20.
There have been series of attacks on minority Shia Muslim community in Pakistan over past several years resulting in thousands of deaths.
Also on Sunday a bomb attack in a cinema in Peshawar killed five people and injured 30 others.
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