A bomb exploded inside a Shia mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing more than 30 worshipers and injuring dozens more, many of them seriously.
The police reported it. The explosion occurred as the faithful gathered in the Kucha Risaldar mosque in Peshawar’s old city for Friday prayers.
The death toll is set to rise. Many of the injured are in critical condition, police and hospital officials say. Authorities have not yet precisely identified the perpetrators of the disaster. “We are in a state of emergency and the injured are being transferred to hospital,” police officer Mohammad Sajjad Khantold Reuters said. Mohammad Aasim, spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital, where the victims were taken.
Senior police officer Ijaz Khan confirmed that it was a suicide bombing. Two armed men would have arrived near the mosque on a motorcycle and stopped for a search by the police on external duty. “They opened fire on the police … and entered the mosque,” the military said. The police are still evaluating whether it was they who carried out the suicide bombing inside the mosque.