A suspected suicide attacker exploded a bomb near a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar late on Saturday, killing at least 11 people, including the city police chief, and wounding 35, police said.
Most of the victims were police and municipal officials who were clearing the route for a procession of Shi’ites in a crowded old quarter of Peshawar, said police officer Aziz Khan. The procession had yet to begin.
Provincial police chief Sharif Virk said that the city police chief Malik Saab was among the dead.
This weekend marks the start of the festival of Ashoura, when Shi’ites mourn the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein. In the past the festival has been a target for sectarian attacks.
The blast went off in the Qissakhwani Bazaar area, about 200m from the Imam Barga Najmul Hassan mosque from where the Shi’ites had been preparing to start their procession. It caused a power failure that left the city centre in darkness, complicating rescue efforts.
At the bomb site, investigators found what appeared to be two detached legs from a suicide attacker, police officer Raza Khan said.
Eleven bodies and 35 wounded people were brought to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, police officer Aziz Khan said. Hundreds of people crowded around the hospital seeking news on loved ones. By loudspeaker, hospital officials appealed for calm and blood donations.
Khan had been on duty near the mosque when the bomb went off. ”I was shocked by a big explosion. I thought my eardrums had burst. Then there were flames and the people were in panic. I remembered that there was a police contingent, so I went to see what had happened to my colleagues. Many were wounded in a bad way,” he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion will likely fall on Sunni extremists.
Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said most of the dead and wounded were police officers. He condemned the attack, saying it had been orchestrated by the ”enemies of Pakistan, Islam and humanity”.
Most Pakistani Shi’ites and Sunnis co-exist peacefully, but militant groups on both sides are blamed for sectarian attacks that claim scores of lives every year.
Security is already high across Pakistan for Ashoura, amid fears that the sectarian violence in Iraq could stir up animosity between minority Shi’ites and majority Sunnis in Pakistan. — Sapa-AP