ISLAMABAD: On a usual afternoon at work, Nasrullah Khan, sub-inspector of police in Peshawar, took some time off from work to offer prayer in the highly guarded Police Lines neighbourhood of the city.
“More than 300 people were inside the mosque, and as soon as the prayers began a big blast was heard, and the roof of the mosque started falling apart,” Khan said, adding that “before I could rush out of the mosque something hit me and I fell on the ground.”
Khan was lucky that a pillar of the roof landed just close to him, making a protective shield and saving him from receiving fatal injuries in a suicide attack which has killed at least 63 people and injured 157 others.
“I was scared down there, seriously wounded, lying under all the dirt, hearing the groans of others, until rescue teams started removing the rubble and I saw a small tunnel and mustered up my courage to creep out of it, with the help of rescue workers,” Khan told Xinhua from Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar where he is being treated for his injuries.
According to Peshawar police, the blast occurred at about 1:13 pm on Monday in the area when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in the front row of the prayer congregation in the mosque.
In talks with Xinhua, Inayatullah Khan, former health minister of the province, who was having a meeting with a police officer a few yards away from the blast site when the incident happened, said the area is a heavily guarded compound consisting of residences and offices of police, intelligence, and counter-terrorism departments.
He said that the bomber had to cross at least two police checkpoints before entering the Police Lines.
“The successful execution of the attack indicates that he was well versed about the area and managed to dodge the police to reach the mosque or had the support of some insider,” he said.
Part of the mosque was razed to the ground following the explosion, trapping scores of people inside, and the rescue teams are still busy sifting through the rubble to recover at least 10 missing people.
Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been imposed in all hospitals in the city to provide the best possible medical treatment to the victims, according to the provincial health department.
Khalid Waqas, president of non-government rescue organisation Al-Khidmat Foundation in the province, told Xinhua when they received news about the incident, their rescue workers in 16 ambulances rushed to the site and shifted the injured people to the hospital, and recovered the trapped people from the debris.
“We remain active in rescue work across the province, but this is one of the most serious blasts that I have ever seen in my life. I can not explain in words what I saw today. Most of the people received wounds both from the explosion and from the collapsed roof due to which they could not survive,” he said.
Almost all of the victims were either policemen, non-uniformed staff of the police department, or their visitors or family members, police sources told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
A Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) sub-group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that a 25-year-old member targeted the police to avenge the death of a militant commander.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited Lady Reading Hospital on Monday to ask about the health of the wounded policemen.
In a statement following his visit, Sharif said “the nation is overwhelmed by a deep sense of grief. I have no doubt terrorism is our foremost national security challenge.”
