Suicide bomber’s severed head found at Pakistan mosque blast site: police

Peshawar:

Rescue officials on Tuesday recovered the severed head of a suspected suicide bomber they believe committed suicide at a mosque packed with worshipers during midday prayers on Monday in a high-security area in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Peshawar city. was blown away.

Police officials said the death toll from the bombings had risen to 93, with 221 seriously injured, while rescue operations were on to retrieve the remaining bodies from the rubble.

The powerful explosion occurred inside the mosque in the Police Lines area at around 1.40 pm when the worshippers, comprising police, army and bomb disposal squad personnel, were offering Zohar (afternoon) prayers.

Officials said a suicide bomber in the front row blew himself up, causing the roof to collapse on worshippers.

Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Peshawar Mohammad Ejaz Khan told Geo TV that the blast appeared to be a suicide attack and the head of the suspected attacker was recovered from the scene in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“It is possible that the attacker was already present in the police line before the blast and may have used an official vehicle [to enter]Geo TV quoted him as saying.

Khan said the exact nature of the blast would be known after the rescue operation is over.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s caretaker chief minister Muhammad Azam Khan announced a day of mourning in the province on Tuesday following the attack.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), better known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and said it was part of an attack in retaliation for Umar Khalid Khurasani, a TTP commander who was killed in Afghanistan last August. Was.

A police official said a portion of the mosque collapsed and several people were feared trapped under it.

The TTP, founded in 2007 as an umbrella group of several terror outfits, broke a ceasefire with the federal government and ordered its militants to carry out attacks across the country.

The group, which is believed to be close to al-Qaeda, is believed to have been blamed for several deadly attacks across Pakistan, including an attack on an army headquarters in 2009, attacks on military bases and a 2008 attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Bombing is included.

In 2014, the Pakistani Taliban attacked the Army Public School (APS) in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 150 people, including 131 students.

The attack sent shockwaves around the world and was widely condemned.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)