AhlulBayt News Agency: The death toll from the attack on a mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines
area a day earlier rose to 92 on Tuesday after more bodies were
recovered from the attack site, a spokesperson for the Lady Reading
Hospital (LRH) confirmed.
On Friday, 59 people, mostly police
officials, were martyred and over 150 were injured after an explosion
ripped through a mosque in Peshawar’s Red Zone area.
The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. It later distanced itself from it.
In
a statement issued today, LRH spokesperson Muhammad Asim said that all
the deceased persons have been identified, while 57 of those injured are
receiving treatment at the facility.
He added that a total of
158 injured people were brought to the hospital on Monday and most of
them had been sent back home after medical aid.
Meanwhile, Rescue
1122 spokesperson Bilal Faizi said that a rescue operation at the blast
site was under way for the past 18 hours.
“This morning we are
going to remove the last part of the collapsed roof so we can recover
more bodies, but we are not hopeful of reaching any survivors,” he said.
On
the other hand, Peshawar police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan said that more
than 90 per cent of the victims were policemen, between 300 and 400 of
whom had gathered in the compound’s mosque for prayers.
Wajahat
Ali, a 23-year-old police constable who survived, said that he had lost
all hopes for survival. “I remained trapped under the rubble with a dead
body over me for seven hours,” he told AFP from the LRH on Tuesday.
Nature of blast yet to be determined
A
police report issued after the attack, said the explosion occurred inside the main hall of a
mosque — which has a capacity of 300 to 350 men — located in the Police
Lines area.
The locality comprises headquarters of the Capital
City Police, Frontier Reserve Police, Elite Police Force, Counter
Terrorism Department, Tele Communication Branch, RRF and SCU etc, it
stated.
The statement said that the blast caused the roof of the
mosque to collapse and a rescue operation was underway by the Pakistan
Army and Rescue 1122, for retrieval of casualties.
“A severed
head has been recovered from inside the debris. The use of explosives in
the incident has been confirmed, while other factors are being
evaluated to confirm the nature of the blast,” it said.
The report added that suicide bombing could not be “ruled out” and investigation by various teams was under way.
Funeral prayers for police martyrs offered
Separately,
funeral prayers for six policemen, including deputy superintendent of
police Arab Nawaz and Ismatullah, were offered earlier today at the
Police Lines area.
On Monday night, collective funeral prayers
for 27 police martyrs were offered in Peshawar’s Police Lines area with
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Chief Mauzzam Jah Ansari, army officers and
officials of civil administration in attendance.
After the
prayers, the coffins of the martyrs — lined in a row and draped with the
national flag — were sent to their hometowns for burial with official
protocol.
Speaking on the occasion, KP IGP Mauzzam Jah Ansari
said that the KP police were always ready to sacrifice their lives for
the protection of people’s lives and property.
“As the head of
this force, I salute the police officials who lost their lives in the
deadly blast. These martyrs are our real heroes and their sacrifices
will not be in vain,” he said, adding that the bereaved families would
not be abandoned and their welfare would be the “prime responsibility”
of the KP police.
On January 22, a police
vehicle narrowly escaped a bomb blast in Peshawar’s Badaber area. A day
earlier, a policeman was killed and two others were injured when
unidentified assailants attacked a police post in Dheri Zardad locality
of Charsadda.
On January 14, a deputy superintendent and two
constables were killed when militants, armed with automatic assault
weapons, targeted the Sarband police station on the outskirts of the
province’s capital, Peshawar late at night.
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31 January 2023 - 09:47
News ID: 1342575
The death toll from the attack on a mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines area a day earlier rose to 92 on Tuesday after more bodies were recovered from the attack site, a spokesperson for the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) confirmed.