Four killed in Peshawar mosque attack

Suspected militants attack mosque with hand-grenades on the outskirts of Peshawar.

PESHAWAR: Suspected militants attacked a mosque with hand-grenades on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing four people and injuring another 17, police and medics said.

“Militants lobbed up to four hand-grenades in a mosque, in Sulimankhel village, where Isha prayers were in progress,” senior police official Abdul Kalam told journalists.

Another police official Muhammad Karim Khan confirmed the grenade attack. “Someone hurled hand-grenades at about 35 worshippers offering  prayers in the main hall of the mosque,” Khan said. The motive of the attack was not clear.

Sulimankhel village, situated in the jurisdiction of Badabher police station, is 15 kilometres south of Peshawar. The area is close to the border with Bara sub-division of Khyber Agency. And Kalam suspected that the attackers might have fled into the neighbouring tribal region.

“I was having dinner when I heard several blasts. Soon afterwards, I heard people crying inside the mosque,” Nigar Ali, an eyewitness told The Express Tribune.

The casualties were ferried to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH). “We received one dead and three wounded people expired at the hospital and now the death toll is four,” administrator Hameed Afridi said. (Additional input from AFP)

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2010.