ISLAMABAD, Oct. 5, Reuter: ;Four people were injured on Monday by a bomb in Islamabad’s main vegetable market, the first such attack in the Pakistani capital, police said.
Witnesses said the blast gouged a two feet (half a meter) deep hole in the ground at Sabzi Mandi Market, a part of the capital frequented by Afghan refugees but far from the main government offices and embassies.
About 200 people have died this year in bomb attacks which Pakistan says are aimed at forcing it to drop support for anticommunist rebels in neighboring Afghanistan. None of the saboteurs have been caught.
Interior Minister Nasim Ahmad Aheer, asked about this morning’s blast, told reporters: “A superpower has chosen a very ugly way to blackmail Pakistan. I make it clear that Pakistan will neither surrender nor deviate from our present stand on the Afghan issue”.
The most devastating attack was on July 14 when twin car bombs killed 73 people in the heart of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.
One month ago, five people were killed at a bus station in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s military headquarters. An unexploded bomb was found the same day on a bicycle at Sabzi Mandi.
The government of President Mohammd ZiaulHaq has sheltered three million refugees who have fled across the border since the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 9, 1987
