PAKISTAN: A rescue and recovery operation has ended in Pakistan after a suicide bombing at a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed at least 95 people, most of them police officials.
Rescue officials on Tuesday recovered the severed head of the suspected suicide bomber who they believe blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers during the afternoon prayers on Monday in the high-security zone in Pakistan’s northwestern Peshawar city.
Kashif Aftab Abbasi, senior superintendent of police operations in Peshawar, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that more than 225 people were also injured in the blast a day earlier.
Fifty-two wounded people remained in hospital, with six in a critical condition, Muhammad Asim, a spokesperson for the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, told Al Jazeera. The vast majority of those killed were police officers, he said. The suicide bombing caused the roof of the mosque to collapse, and rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to recover many of the bodies, authorities said.
Journalists said the operation had largely shifted to recovery.
Meanwhile, questions have grown over how the attacker was able to access the heavily fortified area, which includes the headquarters of the provincial police force and a counterterrorism department, while wearing a suicide vest.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited a hospital in Peshawar on Monday and promised to take “stern action” against those behind the attack.
– ALJAZEERA
