Contingency plans: Security heightened at imambargahs, mosques for Friday prayers

Provincial capital on alert after swathe of sectarian attacks across the country.

PESHAWAR: Security was heightened at imambargahs and mosques in the provincial metropolis on Friday after last week’s deadly attack on Imamia Mosque in Hayatabad and Qasar-e-Sakina Imambargah in Islamabad.

Police had been deployed at every mosque in the city ahead of Friday prayers. Similarly, plain-clothes officers had been tasked with surveillance in and around mosques and other places of worship of the Shia community.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a policeman said taking into account recent sectarian attacks across the country, security had been tightened for both Shia and Sunni mosques as terrorists were after soft targets. Extra policemen, including volunteers, had been deployed in Peshawar, he added.

Extortionists held

The counter-terrorism department raided a building in Karkhano Market and arrested three extortionists—Danyal, Waleed Khan and Abdullah, residents of Bara, Khyber Agency.

Police said the three accused men were involved in blasts at the house of Dr Rizwan Khattak in Phase 6, Hayatabad. They were demanding millions of rupees as extortion.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2015.