Suicide blast during funeral prayer in Pakistan

Over 30 persons were killed while dozens others were injured – most of them critically – in a suicide blast targeting funeral procession of the wife of prominent leader of Amn committee at Adezai, Matani in Peshawar on Wednesday. “Yes the death toll was expected to rise to 40 plus as it was a huge blast amongst the gathering of the mourners,” a police official said. The funeral prayers for wife of Hakim Khan, a member of Amn (Peace) Committee was in progress when the suicide bomber ripped through the mourners killing more than 20 besides injuring dozens of others. Eye witnesses said that the bomber was on foot while entering the Janazagah. Emergency has been declared in the hospitals where the injured are being brought for medical treatment. Peshawar-Kohat road has been closed for all kinds of traffic. Over 20 injured including women and children have been brought to Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar in critical condition. And a private television news channel reports; a suicide bomber attacked a funeral procession in Adezai on Wednesday killing at least 34 people and injuring 45 others. The suicide bomber was targeting members of an anti-Taliban militia attending funeral prayers for the wife of a militiaman in Adezai village, near Peshawar that leads to the border tribal regions, DCO Peshawar, Siraj Ahmed, said. The attacker mingled with the mourners before setting off his explosives, Ahmed said. "People had gathered and had just started praying when a boy walked in and blew himself up," survivor Mohammad Eman said. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed the responsibility of attack. Bloodied shoes and caps littered the ground where the attack took place, on the outskirts of the city, as stunned survivors milled around or bundled the wounded into trucks and away to hospital, television images showed. And a  foreign news agency report says; A suicide bomber targeting a funeral in northwestern Pakistan killed 37 people and wounded at least 45 others on Wednesday, police said. Police and witnesses said the bomber had slipped into the congregation of more than 200 people attending funeral prayers in Adezai village, near Peshawar city.Television footage showed bearded elderly men wearing bloodstained clothes rushing from the scene in panic. Caps and slippers lay alongside scattered body parts at the prayer site, which was spattered with blood.
"We have taken 37 dead bodies and 45 injured to the hospital," Kalam Khan, a senior police officer at the site, said to the news agency. The head of the main hospital in Peshawar city, Abdul Hameed Afridi was quoted as saying that 36 bodies had been received along with body parts, and warned that the death toll could rise, with several people critically injured. Police officer Mohammad Ijaz Khan confirmed the bomber's target. "The target of the bombing was members of the anti-Taliban militia," Khan said. "We have sent teams to remove the bodies and shift the injured to the hospital," he added.

No comments:

Post a Comment