66 victims of suicide attack on Pakistan mosque buried

Grief-stricken residents of the Darra Adam Khel region in northwest Pakistan today buried 66 victims of a devastating suicide attack on a mosque even as doctors struggled to save the lives of several seriously injured persons.

Officials had put the death toll in yesterday’s suicide bombing at the mosque in Attariwal village at 67, but assistant political agent Sayed Gul Jamal said the figure had been revised as the suicide bomber was mistakenly included among the victims.

"We included the bomber in the list of those killed as the 67th victim," Jamal said.

An investigation into the attack was underway though no arrests had been made, officials said.

There were touching scenes as victims of the bombing, one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year, were buried in the graveyards in Darra Adam Khel, a region located 40-km south of Peshawar that is best known for its gun manufacturing factories.

Funeral processions were taken out from almost every house of in Attariwal and volunteers worked through the night to prepare graves.

Some of the dead were buried last night, with headlights of vehicles providing light as there was a power blackout in the area.

The imams of six smaller mosques, who attended the Friday prayers at the larger mosque in Attariwal, were also among the dead. They were buried in the same row in a graveyard.

Seventy injured people were being treated in hospitals in Peshawar and officials described the condition of some of them as serious. However, a majority were in a stable condition, they said.

A total of 95 wounded people were brought to the state-run Lady Reading Hospital yesterday and 25 of them, including a woman and several children, succumbed to their injuries.

TV news channels had reported yesterday that the local chapter of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had claimed responsibility for the suicide attack but a militant spokesman distanced the rebels from the incident.

TTP spokesman claimed the news channels were maligning the militants.

"We warn the channels to behave and if this practice is not stopped, we will be compelled to take strict action against them," the spokesman said.

The bomber was a teenage boy with a small beard who blew himself up amidst worshippers attending the Friday prayers.

Muhammad Yunas, a medical dispenser who was injured in the blast, told PTI that the bomber struck just as the Imam stood up to deliver the sermon.

Hours after the suicide attack on the mosque in Attariwal, terrorists lobbed several grenades at another mosque on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing four persons.

Friday's bombing was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide attacker killed 60 people at a Shia Muslim rally in the southwestern city of Quetta on September 3.