Eight Afghan police officers have been arrested in connection with an explosion last week that killed six children, the BBC reported.

 

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said the officers — who are accused of misusing government weapons — were suspected of firing rockets into a pond to catch fish in the Doshi district of northern Baghlan province on Friday, hitting a crowd of children nearby.

 

At least two other children were wounded in the incident.

 

The police are trying to sort out differing accounts of how the children died.

 

One local police source said the children were killed by an unexploded rocket shell. The children found the shell on the side of the same river in which the local police had been fishing on Friday, the source said.

 

Shamsoddin Sarhadi, governor of the Doshi district, said the children were feeding animals in a pasture when a mine planted by “armed opponents” exploded.

 

But in a statement on Tuesday, Interior Ministry officials said the policemen had been arrested for firing a rocket into the river in an attempt to catch fish.