BANNU: Four people, including two policemen, were killed and seven others sustained injuries when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint here on Tuesday.

Police said the unidentified suicide bomber riding a Qingqi auto-rickshaw reached Kot Brada checkpoint at 8:30 am and blew him up, killing four people on the spot and injuring seven others. The suicide bomber’s body was torn into pieces as a result of the deadly explosion.

The dead included an assistant sub-inspector of police Waheed Iqbal, police constable Hameed, and two passers-by whose identity could not be ascertained. The injured were identified as Aurangzeb, Shadman, Arshad, Safdar, Sikandar and Rehan. The injured have been admitted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Bannu, where the condition of one of them was stated to be critical.

Soon after the incident, the police blocked all the major routes as the NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani was scheduled to arrive in the city later in the day. Meanwhile, sources said maimed body parts of the suicide bomber had been sent to hospital for a DNA test.