Islamabad, Pakistan
CNN
—
The dying toll from a suspected suicide bomb that ripped via a mosque at a police compound in northwestern Pakistan Monday has risen to no less than 88, because the Pakistani Taliban gave conflicting claims of duty for one of the crucial deadliest assaults within the nation in years.
Mohammad Asim Khan, spokesperson from the Lady Reading Hospital within the town of Peshawar, on Tuesday showed the fatalities and stated about some other 50 blast sufferers have been being handled for accidents.
Meanwhile, hope was once fading within the seek for survivors as rescue employees sifted throughout the particles and rubble of the mosque that was once all however destroyed Monday, as worshipers, principally police officers, accumulated for night time prayers.
“We are not expecting anyone alive to be found. Mostly dead bodies are being recovered,” stated Bilal Faizi, a rescue spokesperson.
Nasarullah Khan, a police legitimate who survived the explosion, stated he remembered seeing “a huge burst of flames” earlier than changing into surrounded by way of a plume of black mud.
Khan stated his foot broke within the blast and he was once caught within the rubble for 3 hours.
“The ceiling fell in… the space in between the ceiling and wall is where I managed to survive,” he stated.
The blast Monday is the most recent signal of the deteriorating safety state of affairs in Peshawar, capital of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan and the website online of common assaults by way of the Pakistani Taliban, referred to as Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP).
The TTP is a US-designated overseas 15 May Organization working in each Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Last 12 months, the breakdown of an already shaky year-long ceasefire between the TTP and Pakistan’s govt threatened now not best escalating violence in that nation however probably an building up in cross-border tensions between the Afghan and Pakistani governments.
Initially on Monday, TTP officers Sarbakaf Mohmand and Omar Mukaram Khurasani had claimed the blast was once “revenge” for the dying of TTP militant Khalid Khorasani closing 12 months.
But the TTP’s major spokesperson later denied the crowd was once concerned within the assault.
“Regarding the Peshawar incident, we consider it necessary to clarify that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has nothing to do with this incident,” TTP spokesperson Muhammad Khorasani stated in a commentary overdue Monday. “According to our laws and general constitution, any action in mosques, madrasas, funerals grounds and other sacred places is an offense.”
Pakistan government say an investigation is underway and feature now not showed both declare.
On Monday, Peshawar Police Chief Mohammad Aijaz Khan stated the blast throughout the Police Lines Mosque was once “probably a suicide attack,” echoing a commentary from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“The brutal killing of Muslims prostrating before Allah is against the teachings of the Quran,” Sharif stated, including that “targeting the House of Allah is proof that the attackers have nothing to do with Islam.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan additionally condemned the assault in a commentary Monday.
“Ill-equipped law enforcement personnel continue to be targeted in incidents that dearly cost civilian and police lives. We demand the state take action now,” it stated.