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Peshawar bomb targets music and video stores

A homemade bomb in a Pakistan market damaged four music and video shops yesterday just weeks after their owners refused an order from Islamic hardliners to close down their stores.

Police said two people were injured in the blast at a market in Peshawar, the largest city in the deeply conservative North West Frontier Province along the border with Afghanistan.

One of the shopowners, Bashir Khan, said that hardliners calling themselves the "Soldiers of Islam" had left him a note several weeks ago, saying that music shops in the Gulshan market should close their doors.

"We had informed the police about the note and requested them to provide security," Khan said.

The blast left a crater and damaged the roof and pillar of market building, and also shattered windows in nearby houses, local police official Abdul Qadir said.

The injured guard was in stable condition, while the injured passer by was released after giving first aid, Qadir said.

The guard said that an unidentified man had handed him a tin of cooking oil which had exploded minutes after the man left.

The province has seen other attacks on video and music shops blamed on extremists emulating the Taliban.
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