Bomb Blasts Damage Buddhist Relic in Pakistan

September 29, 2007

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Times of India

Wire Service: AP

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Bomb_blasts_damage_Buddhist_relic_in_Pakistan/articleshow/2414916.cms

A seventh-century Buddhist relic in Pakistan was damaged when Islamic militants blasted it with dynamite, police said on Saturday.

They said that the militants used home-made bombs to try to blow up the mountainside engraving, a Buddhist pilgrimage site, and fired at it using automatic weapons.

"Late on Friday, militants attempted to blow up the engraving but they could only damage it partially," local police official Masood Khan said, adding it was the second attempt to destroy the relic, in Swat in northwest Pakistan.