A powerful blast carried out by a suicide bomber at the site of where the embattled chief justice of the Supreme Court was scheduled to speak Tuesday evening killed at least 14 people and injured at least 40, according to the police, dragging the Pakistani capital into a new round of disorder less than a week after a violent siege at a hard line mosque and seminary.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility.
Ten of the injured are in a critical condition, according to hospital sources. Four policemen were among the injured.
In another incident, three soldiers and a passerby were killed and two others were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint in Mirali in the restive North Waziristan tribal region straddling the border with Afghanistan.
The suicide attack in North Waziristan appeared to have come in the wake of failed negotiations between tribal militants and negotiators who were trying to revive a controversial 10-month old peace deal with the government.
The government on Monday had dispatched a team of tribal elders to meet with leaders of militant groups in North Waziristan in an attempt to salvage the peace deal that unraveled in the wake of last week’s siege of the Red Mosque.
