Motorcycle bomb kills 4 in Pakistan – police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded on a busy roadside Monday, killing at least four people and wounding 28 others in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.

Violence has spiked in the nuclear-armed country ahead of national polls on May 11 with 56 people killed in attacks targeting politicians and political parties since April 11, according to an AFP tally.

Monday’s bombing took place at Peshawar’s Jehangir Abad neighbourhood on Arbab Road close to a police vehicle and also damaged a passing bus.

“At least four people were killed and 28 others were wounded in the bomb blast,” police official Mohammad Faisal told AFP, updating an earlier toll of two dead.

“A police vehicle was the apparent target but a bus passing close to it suffered the most damage,” he said. Peshawar’s administrator Sahibzada Anees had passed the site of the blast just a minute earlier, he added.

Hospital officials confirmed the updated death toll.