Five children were killed on Saturday in a freak accident at the Lakki Marwat district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 12 others were also critically injured in the incident, after an old mortar shell exploded while they had been playing with it.
The children had found the mortar shell in a field, a spokesperson for the Bannu region police told Dawn.
Thinking it was a toy, the children took the unexploded mortar shell back to their village, Sorband, he explained, adding that the injured were taken to the Khalifa Gul Nawaz hospital, where they were being administered treatment.
According to a hospital spokesperson, most of the 12 injured were children, some of whom are in critical condition, as per a PTI report.
The Bannu regional police also stated that a Bomb Disposal Squad had arrived at the scene, collected evidence and initiated an investigation.
The incident has caused widespread panic among the people of Sorband. However, Saturday’s explosion is not the first such freak accident—related to unexploded munitions—to occur in Pakistan.
The Bannu regional police also promised assistance for the affected families, declaring that those responsible would be brought to justice.
Earlier this year, the Indian Army successfully conducted a controlled operation with local police officials, in which 42 unexploded shells found in the Poonch district were destroyed safely, according to an Army statement. The shells were remnants of the recent cross-border shelling from Pakistan, in the hostilities that followed Operation Sindoor.
Trained bomb disposal teams ensured the complete neutralisation of all explosive remnants, the statement added.
