Security personnel gather at the site after multiple explosions caused by a fire in a munitions cache in a Pakistan police station in Kabal, in the Swat Valley, on April 24, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)

KARACHI, Pakistan - The death toll from Monday's explosions in a police ammunition depot in Pakistan has risen to 17, police said.

Provincial police chief Akhtar Hayat said the explosions rocked the counter-terrorism office in northwestern Swat valley, which was previously long controlled by Islamist militants before they were flushed out in a military operation in 2009.

Pakistani police and military have got a significant presence of their counter-terrorism staff in the valley, which has been prone to the insurgency

His spokesman said in a statement issued later that ammunition caught fire, "most probably due to an electric short-circuit. No evidence of an attack from outside has been established so far."

The dead include nine policemen, five detainees and three civilians, Swat valley police chief Shafiullah Gandapur said on Tuesday.

ALSO READ: Landslide in Pakistan's NW buries trucks, kills at least two

Pakistani police and military have got a significant presence of their counter-terrorism staff in the valley, which has been prone to the insurgency.

The militants also shot at and wounded Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012 in the scenic valley, the birthplace of Mullah Fazlullah, the former chief of the Pakistani Taliban, who was killed in an air strike in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2018.

Other aspects of the explosions are being investigated, the spokesman said.

ALSO READ: Pakistan hopes to seal key IMF bailout agreement soon

The regional chief of the counter-terrorism department Sohail Khalid told reporters that the explosions did not appear to be a suicide attack or other act of terrorism.

"There was a store where we had a huge quantity of weapons, and until now we believe that there might have some blast in it due to some carelessness" he said, adding, "We are keeping all our options open."

A hospital administration said it received several wounded people for treatment, some of them in critical condition.