The death toll in a suicide bombing in a crowd during Friday prayers at a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan has risen to 62. While 200 people are injured. The country’s interior minister on Saturday pledged to arrest the mastermind of the deadly suicide attack carried out by the Islamic State terrorist group on a Shia mosque.
In one of the deadliest attacks in the region bordering Afghanistan, a suicide bomber belonging to ISIS-Khorasan blew himself up inside a mosque at Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar, capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, on Friday.
The death toll rose to 62 on Saturday after five more people who were injured in the blast died, a hospital official said. Muhammad Asim, spokesman for Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, said the number could rise further.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and investigative agencies have identified and arrested all three suspects in connection with the attack. In a video message shared on Twitter, Ahmed said police and investigative agencies would reach out to those suspects in a day or two.
Peshawar SSP (Operations) Haroon Rashid Khan said the blast was a suicide blast. He said there were two attackers but only one of them was a suicide bomber. An eyewitness, identifying a man dressed in black as a suicide bomber, said he entered the mosque, first shot dead the security guard and then fired five to six shots.