PESHAWAR – At least 36 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in Adezai village on the Peshawar-Kohat Road on Wednesday. The attack was the second in the country in as many days, following Tuesday’s car bombing near the office of the Inter-Services Intelligence in Faisalabad. Police said that the explosion took place when around 300 people were preparing to offer funeral prayers for a relative of an active member of the Adezai peace lashkar.
Militants from Tehreek-e-Taliban Darra Adam Khel claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said was in retaliation for the anti-Taliban militia’s support for the government’s action against terrorists. “These lashkars are raised to create chaos instead of maintaining peace,” militant spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said in a phone call from an undisclosed location. “The lashkars and the army are fighting us at the behest of the Americans.
We will continue attacks on them,” he said. Peshawar police chief Liaqat Ali Khan told Pakistan Today that the suicide bomber had joined the funeral congregation at the very end and stood in the second row. He said most of the people at the funeral were locals, including almost 50 members and volunteers of the lashkar, police and community police.
Gul Akbar, a witness, said the blast took place as those attending the funeral had lined up to offer prayers. “The suicide bomber very easily joined the participants. There was not a single policeman to check him,” said Akbar. People from Peshawar and other surrounding areas rushed to the site and helped with rescue activities. Doctors at Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar said they had received 36 dead bodies and more than 50 wounded, 10 of whom were in serious condition while around a dozen had been discharged after receiving first aid.
The members and volunteers of the anti-Taliban militia are on the hit-list of militant groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Islam. A number of important members and leaders of the lashkar, including its founder Haji Abdul Malik and close aides, have been killed in similar terrorist acts. Humayun Khan, a member of the militia, complained that the government had not provided enough arms, ammunition and police to deal with the militant threat.
“I was standing in the last row. The blast took place in the middle of the funeral. It was so severe and huge that I still feel deaf. The government and police are responsible for such incidents,” he said. Provincial Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour reached the site soon after the attack and supervised rescue activities. PML-N leader Dilawar Khan, who is chief of his faction of the lashkar, condemned the suicide attack and held the government responsible because despite frequent requests and appeals, the government had failed to protect the peace lashkar.
“Officers and personnel of the local police station are providing information to militants,” he alleged. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani issued a statement condemning the attack and reiterated the government’s “resolve to root out the cancer of terrorism from every nook and corner of the country”.
