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Thursday, November 14, 2024  
11 Jumada Al-Awwal 1446  

Mohmand suicide attack death toll rises to 36

- AP file photo - AP file photo

Curfew was clamped down in Anbar and Pandiali and adjoining areas of Mohmand Agency, following suicide bombing that claimed lives of 36 people and injured several others, during Friday prayers.

According to local administration, the curfew has imposed a day after at least 28 people were killed while another 31 injured in a blast inside a local mosque in Mohmand Agency during Friday prayers.

Senior Political administration official, Naveed Akbar said security forces had launched search operation, after the suicide attack in the agency. Whereas, according to political administration, the death toll from Mohmand Agency mosque suicide blast has reached to 36, as more victims succumbed to their injuries at hospital on Saturday.

The political administration also announced a compensation of Rs 500,000 for families of each of the dead and Rs 100,000 for each of the injured. A suicide bomber targeted the mosque in Mohmand's Pai Khan Village during Friday prayers, leaving at least 30 worshipers dead and wounding 30 others.

Several children were also among those killed or wounded in the deadly attack. Three tribesmen had succumbed to their injuries in hospital on Friday, while two more died of their wounds on Saturday morning.

Naveed Akbar said that a suicide bomber blew him inside the mosque located in Anbar, teshil of Mohmand when worshippers were returning after offering Friday prayers. "Witnesses and survivors say someone shouted Allah-o-Akbar and then a huge explosion went off." Akbar confirmed the victims were mostly teenagers and children.

Sawab Khan, a resident of Anbar, who was brought to the Agency Headquarters Hospital (AHH) at Ghalanai in the Mohmand tribal region with injuries, said he was offering prayers along with at least 200 other worshippers when he heard a shout of 'Allahu Akbar' followed by an explosion.

"There was blood everywhere [and] the veranda was destroyed," he recalled. Sawab Khan said most of the injured were waiting for vehicles to be taken to hospitals because there were no arrangements of transportation in the area. Soft targets such as courts, schools and mosques are routinely attacked.

A resident of the village adjacent to Payee Khan said he rushed to the mosque as soon as he heard the explosion. "The roof of the prayer hall and the veranda had collapsed. There were body parts strewn everywhere and many people were pinned beneath the rubble," he said. Funeral prayers of all martyrs have been offered in Khan Kalay area of the agency. They were laid to rest in their ancestral graveyards.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2016