At least seven killed and 70 injured in an attack on a seminary in Pakistan

At least seven students have been killed and 70 others injured in a bomb attack on a religious school in the city of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday.

"A class on the Koran was being taught when the explosion occurred. The explosives were inside a bag that someone brought into the seminary," Peshawar police spokesman Faiz Khan told Efe.

The source indicated that at least seven people were killed, while Taimur Khan Jhagra, the health minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is located, indicated on Twitter that another 70 people were injured in the explosion that occurred early this morning.

"We fear that the number of victims will increase," Khan said.
 

The city's police superintendent, Waqar Azeem, told Efe that the seven dead were students, but he did not give their ages.

The injured have been taken to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, a medical centre that has declared a state of emergency.

Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack and the loss of life.

Peshawar has already experienced a massacre at an army-run school that killed 135 people, including 25 children, in December 2014.
 

Terrorism has been reduced considerably in the Asian country in recent years, but recent months have seen an upsurge in violence.

In the middle of this month, 14 members of the security forces were killed in an attack on the convoy escorting the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) in the troubled province of Baluchistan in the southwest of the country.

In August, six people were killed and 24 injured in a bomb attack on a market in the town of Shaman in the same province.