Death toll in Pakistan mosque blast rises to 93
The death toll from a suicide bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan has risen to 93, a provincial government official said Tuesday, a day after one of the worst attacks in months in the cash-strapped South Asian nation, NBC News reported.
Riaz Khan Mahsud, commissioner of the Peshawar division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said bodies were still being recovered from the rubble of the mosque where a bomber set off explosives Monday during afternoon prayer, causing the roof to cave in. The mosque is inside a walled compound housing the Peshawar police headquarters, and officials said most of the victims were police officers.
Deputy commissioner Shafiullah Khan said 177 other people had been injured and that 57 of them were still hospitalized, some in critical condition.
About 300 worshippers were in the mosque at the time of the blast, said Ijaz Khan, the Peshawar police chief.
“A portion of the building collapsed, and some of the people are alive but stranded there,” he said Monday. “Our teams are engaged in cutting the steel to recover them.”
It was unclear how the bomber was able to get past security at the compound, as well as in a larger high-security zone that surrounds it. Khan said officials had confirmed that the bomber was not a member of the police force.
Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. But spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani later denied the group was involved.
Militant attacks in Pakistan, particularly on security forces and police, have increased since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government.
The bombing at the mosque in Peshawar has been widely condemned both in Pakistan and internationally.