Inspector Shafiq and Irfanulla decided to enter the mosque in Peshawar to pray after an important meeting without expecting death lurking in the crowd.
As Shafiq and about 300 followers began a Zuhr prayer inside a mosque in Peshawar city, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwest Pakistan at noon on January 20, a suicide bomber in the front row detonated explosives. hidden inside. The large explosion caused the roof and part of the wall to collapse on the place where many people were worshiping.
Shafiq’s ears were ringing, his eyes could not see anything after the explosion. When he was able to open his eyes, the police inspector noticed that the atmosphere in the cathedral was dusty. His cousin Irfanulla was dead, buried under the rubble.
“He was on his way home from an important meeting when he decided to go to the mosque to pray,” Shafiq choked. “5 children are waiting for their father to come back”.
Irfanulla was one of at least 90 people killed in a suicide bombing at the cathedral, mostly police. About 170 people were injured, many of them in critical condition.
Shahid Ali, a police survivor, said the explosion happened seconds after the vigil began. “I saw black smoke rising and ran out so I escaped,” the 47-year-old man said. “In my head still echoes the screams, begging for help of the victims.”
Police stand guard outside the site of a suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar, January 31. Photo: AFP.
The mosque is located in a high-security area where the police headquarters and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s counter-terrorism unit are located. The witness said the loud bang “reverberated throughout the city”. The windows of neighboring buildings were all shattered by the shock wave.
Hospitals in Peshawar fell into chaos, packed with victims. Weeping loved ones crowded the narrow corridors. The air was stuffy, thick with the smell of blood.
It was the deadliest bombing in the region since a suicide attack by the Islamic State (IS) group killed 58 people in March 2022.
At one hospital, the victim’s relatives gathered outside the emergency area so much that the ambulance carrying the body could not move. Too many injured people were brought in at once, causing hospitals to become overwhelmed.
Rescuers move an injured victim at the campus of a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, January 30. Photo: Reuters.
Amidst the terror that engulfed the entire city, many people came to the scene to assist in the search for victims, flocking to hospitals to donate blood to save lives, after the call of the authorities.
All related nurses and doctors were mobilized, including those on leave, but still faced many difficulties. After confirming most of the victims, their bodies were moved to the morgue.
Authorities have not yet identified the individual or organization behind the bombing. Peshawar is located near the border with Afghanistan, where many Islamist militants have remained active for many years. One of them is Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an Islamic militant group that shares the same ideology with the Taliban, which has carried out dozens of bloody attacks that have left hundreds dead in Pakistan since 2007.
Duc Trung (Theo Express Tribune)