PESHAWAR, June 21: Two children and an elderly man were killed and 31 others injured when a bomb exploded near a Panj Pir (five Sufi saints) shrine in Hazarkhwani area of the city on Thursday.

A large number of people visit on Thursdays this and other shrines located in a compound.Peshawar SSP (operations) Tahir Ayub said the bomb, in a pressure cooker, had been placed in a donkey cart. He said the target appeared to be visitors. The blast destroyed a portion of the compound wall.

Bomb disposal official Hukam Khan said the bomb contained about 10 to 12 kilograms of explosives.

The bomb was apparently detonated by remote control.

`We have collected several ball-bearings and pieces of the pressure cooker and it was similar to the bombs which exploded in different areas of the provincial metropolis in the past,` he said.

Atteq, a young man who was injured, said he and his family regularly visited the shrine and could never imagined that such an incident would takeplace at the shrine.

He said that people screamed for help but nothing could be seen because of dust and smoke.

Those killed were identified as Muzamil (9), Sumbal (5) and Zahir Shah (60).

The injured were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital and five of them were said to be in critical condition.

An official of the Yakatoot police station said devotees from Peshawar and tribal regions visited the shrines, but Thursday was considered to be a special day.

He said that mostly youths visited the shrines and prayed for their early marriage.

Those injured are: Hidyatullah (28), Wajid (25), Zeeshan (25), Shoaib Shah (25), Roohullah (25), Atteeg (24), Said Shah (24), Shakoor (24), Basit (22), Ajmal (22), Mohammad Shehzad (21), Akif (20), Tufail (19), Saifa (18), Mohammad Adil (18), Kashif (18), Haidar Ali (17), Tahir (16), Mukhtiar Bebi (42), Sania (30), Seema (20), Rzeena (18) and Sana (17).

The rest of the injured were 12 years old or younger.