Photo: Collected-
Metropolis Desk-
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Chief Moazzam Jah Ansari said on Thursday that the police were “closing in” on the terror network behind the suicide attack on a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines area, revealing that the “bomber was clad in a police uniform.”
On Jan 30, a powerful explosion ripped through a mosque in Peshawar’s Red Zone area where between 300 and 400 people — mostly police officers — had gathered for prayers. The suicide blast blew away the wall of the prayer hall and an inner roof, reports Dawn.
Talking about the status of the probe at a presser today, Ansari said that the police had found ball bearings from the blast site. “We bound ball bearings used in a suicide jacket from underneath the rubble [of the mosque] yesterday.
“This was a suicide bomber, and we have traced him […] we have obtained the CCTV footage of his movement from Khyber Road to the Police Lines […] then how he parked his motorcycle on a side […] he was in a police uniform and was wearing a mask and a helmet,” the officer revealed.
He also confirmed that the severed head that the police found from the blast site was of the attacker.
Ansari said that policemen at the entrance of the Police Lines did not “check the attacker because they thought he was their own.”
“At 12:37 pm, he [the attacker] entered the main gate on a motorcycle, came inside, talked to a constable, and asked him where the mosque was; this means that the attacker was not aware of the area […] he was given a target, and there is an entire network behind him … he was not a lone ranger,” Ansari said.
He went on to say that the police have traced the attacker’s motorcycle as well. “Investigation is a process that will require time, we are doing it diligently, but it will require some patience.”
At one point during the press conference, Ansari revealed that 10-12kg of TNT, a high explosive, was used in the blast.
“In trinitrotoluene blasts, the shockwaves have no space to go anywhere,” he said, adding that this was what reason for the high number of casualties.
“The 50-year-old mosque at the Peshawar Police Lines did not have pillars … so when the bomb exploded, the walls and roof caved in. My children [the people inside the mosque] were stuck under the rubble for hours.
“Our rescue operation lasted for over 28 hours … we couldn’t just complete it in two hours,” he added.
