Black sunday: Bomber kills 15 mourners at Peshawar funeral

Deputy Speaker of K-P Assembly Khushdil Khan survives attack; Taliban claim responsibility.

PESHAWAR:

Indiscriminate Taliban violence continues unabated in the volatile north of the country. On Sunday, a suicide bomber struck at a funeral on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing 15 mourners and injuring scores more.

Police believe the deputy speaker of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Khushdil Khan, who was attending the funeral, could have been the target.

The blast went off near the gate of the main Janazgah (funeral site) in the Badhber area where people had just offered funeral prayers, Superintendent Police (Rural) Kalam Khan said. “It was a suicide attack, we have found the head and legs of the bomber,” he said.

Witnesses said the bomber, a teenager, was waiting outside the Janazgah after he failed to reach his target as the funeral was offered 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time of 11am.

The bomber set off the explosives minutes after Khushdil left the venue along with his security guards.

“Khushdil Khan escaped the blast by 15 minutes,” eyewitness Juma Khan told The Express Tribune. “The bomber was wearing a shawl and nobody suspected him,” he added.

Another witness, Saddam Hussain, described the carnage. “We lifted the coffin and headed towards the graveyard after the prayers when a huge blast was heard,” he said.

“There were body parts and blood stains. People were crying for help. There was no ambulance. Mourners put the casualties in their cars and rushed to the hospital. I myself put one wounded man in a car heading to the hospital.”

The district’s top administrator said the death toll from the incident has gone up to 15. “The latest toll is 15 dead and 37 wounded,” Muhammad Siraj, the district coordination officer (DCO), told reporters. A second cousin of Khushdil is also said to be among the dead.

Doctor Rahim Jan, head of the Lady Reading Hospital, confirmed the casualties. “We received nine bodies from the blast site and six died later in the hospital,” Jan said, adding that seven of the injured were in a serious condition.

In the hospital Zahir Shah, 40, wailed with grief near the body of his elder brother Raees Khan.

“Why did you murder my brother? He was so beautiful,” he said. “This morning we had our breakfast together. My mother will not survive if I show her his body.”

Initially, police suspected that the bomb was strapped to a motorcycle. Later the Bomb Disposal Squad found the head and severed limbs of the bomber which confirmed it was a suicide attack.

Imtiaz Altaf, the capital city police officer, said about eight kilograms of explosives had been used in the attack. He added that the motorcycle and a car which were destroyed in the blast belonged to the mourners and were not used in the blast.

Badhber is the native village of Khushdil Khan who had come to attend the funeral of a woman, her neighbourer, who was shot dead accidently by her son.

Khushdil is a member of the ruling Awami National Party. He has formed a pro-government Lashkar in the area and is on the hit-list of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), SP Kalam Khan said.

Khushdil also blamed the Taliban for the attack. “They are targeting innocent people, they are enemies of humanity,” he told AFP. “We want peace in our area and we fight against all those who want to disrupt peace in our region.”

Later in the evening, the Darra Adam Khel chapter of TTP claimed responsibility for the attack saying that Khushdil was their target.

“Khushdil has raised a lashker against the Taliban. Such (anti-Taliban) people are the real hurdle in the enforcement of Islamic sharia, and our fidayeen (suicide bombers) will continue to target them,” TTP spokesperson Muhammad told The Express Tribune by phone from an undisclosed location.

Sunday’s funeral bombing was the first since September 15 when a suicide attacker targeting a Lashkar killed 46 people at a funeral in Lower Dir district.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM AFP)

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2012.