{"id":299843,"date":"2018-07-02T07:05:45","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T07:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=299843"},"modified":"2018-07-02T07:05:45","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T07:05:45","slug":"suicide-bomb-attack-targets-sikh-minority-in-afghanistan-kills-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/suicide-bomb-attack-targets-sikh-minority-in-afghanistan-kills-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide bomb attack targets Sikh minority in Afghanistan, kills 19"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

At least 19 people were killed and 20 others injured in a suicide bombing attack on July 1 in the eastern city of Jalalabad, officials said. The attack came in wake of President Ashraf Ghani’s visit in provincial capital Nangarhar to inaugurate a hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ghani’s spokesman confirmed the president was still in Nangarhar but was “away from danger”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The blast damaged shops and buildings around Mukhaberat square in the city. Among the 19 dead were 12 Sikhs and Hindus,” governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials confirmed that Avtar Singh Khalsa (ran unopposed for a seat in the lower house of parliament), was going to represent Afghanistan\u2019s tiny Sikh and Hindu minority in the next parliament, also lost his life in the suicide bomb attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The explosion was caused by a suicide bomber who targeted a vehicle carrying members of the Sikh minority who were travelling to meet the president,” Nangarhar’s police chief Ghulam Sanayi Stanekzai said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources revealed that security forces immediately cordoned off the site of the explosion as ambulances transferred victims to the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no immediate claim of responsibility by any terror outfit.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 19 people were killed and 20 others injured in a suicide bombing attack on July 1 in the eastern city of Jalalabad, officials said. The attack came in wake of President Ashraf Ghani’s visit in provincial capital Nangarhar to inaugurate a hospital. Ghani’s spokesman confirmed the president was still in Nangarhar but was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53],"tags":[428,3250,1350,261,3249,2987,3251],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299845,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299843\/revisions\/299845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/299844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}