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Two other children injured after they brought home a bomb disguised as a toy.
A father and two of his children were killed in Swat on Tuesday after a bomb concealed inside a toy went off inside their home. The incident happened in the village of Bishigram.
Salim Khan Marwat, the area’s police chief, said the 35-year-old man’s three children and their cousin had found the toy in the streets and brought it home to play with. Once home, the toy exploded. “The father, his nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son died on the spot while two other children were wounded,” Marwat said, adding those injured were the man’s other son and his nephew. Afzal Khan, a police official in Bishigram village, confirmed the incident.
The origin of the bomb was unclear.
Dozens of children, mostly in insurgency-hit northwest Pakistan, have lost their lives in the past when playing with “toys” that turned out to be bombs. “Toy” bombs were airdropped in neighboring Afghanistan by Soviet forces during the 1980s as weapons against those who opposed their invasion.