Peshawar, Pakistan – Naib Rehman lies on his hospital mattress together with his leg wrapped in plaster. The 44-year-old remembers that as he stood for the afternoon prayer together with 300 different worshippers, a large blast shook the mosque within the northwestern Pakistani metropolis of Peshawar.
At the very least 100 individuals, most of them policemen, had been killed and greater than 225 individuals wounded within the suicide blast on Monday, the deadliest in a decade as assaults by armed teams are on the rise.
“I used to be standing with my buddies when the blast threw us away, and simply as we tried to get our bearings, inside a number of seconds, all the roof collapsed,” Rehman, who works within the telecommunications division for the police, instructed Al Jazeera.
“We had been fortunate sufficient to discover a means and crawled out, however my leg was badly wounded,” Rehman stated. Like a lot of the wounded, he was dropped at town’s primary hospital, Woman Studying.
Rescue employees clear rubble on the website of the mosque assault [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Rehman stated he’s decided to hold on.
“Though I misplaced a number of of my buddies, it is not going to deter me,” he stated as he lay with seven different sufferers in a hospital ward. “I’ll return to my job. That is my responsibility. I can’t be afraid of this assault.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned the assault and promised “stern motion”. Officers have introduced an investigation into the blast in a high-security police zone.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable,” Sharif tweeted after visiting Peshawar. “That is a minimum of an assault on Pakistan.”
A faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also called the Pakistani Taliban, claimed duty for the assault, however a TTP spokesman later denied a task within the blast.
A tenuous months-long ceasefire between the TTP and Pakistan collapsed final yr and the group has since intensified its assaults towards Pakistani safety personnel.
Yashwa Tariq, a 28-year-old police constable, was on an obligation in Peshawar when he obtained a name from a pal on Monday afternoon telling him that his home subsequent to the mosque had been broken in an explosion.
“My coronary heart simply sank,” stated Tariq, who rushed dwelling. He described what he discovered as rubble and utter chaos.
“All my neighbours and buddies had been making an attempt to take away the particles with their naked arms,” he stated. “I managed to seek out my son who was damage, fully coated in mud and couldn’t open his eyes.”
Tariq’s spouse, sister and grandmother had been trapped underneath the collapsed roof in one other room. The police constable managed to get his son out and rushed him to Woman Studying Hospital, praying that the remainder of his household would survive.
His spouse, son and sister did, however his maternal grandmother, Rasheeda Bibi, was killed.
“My spouse has suffered a fracture in each her legs,” Tariq instructed Al Jazeera. “My sister has a gash in her head. My son is affected by trauma. My grandmother has died. I’ve nowhere to return to. I don’t have a house anymore.”
A number of different homes subsequent to the mosque the place policemen reside had been additionally broken.
The influence of the blast was so extreme that it introduced down the roof over the principle prayer corridor of the mosque, underneath which near 300 worshippers had been about to start their prayers.
Kashif Aftab Abbasi, a senior superintendent of police operations in Peshawar, confirmed to Al Jazeera that preliminary police investigations discovered that the blast was brought on by a suicide bomber and the overwhelming majority of deaths was brought on by the roof collapse.
Greater than 90 p.c of those that died labored for the police.
The explosion within the Police Strains Mosque was the primary main assault in Peshawar since March when a Shia mosque was attacked by the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, killing greater than 60 individuals.
Muhammed Asim, a Woman Studying Hospital spokesman, stated the state of affairs on the facility on Monday was “overwhelming” as ambulances introduced in droves of lifeless and wounded.
In contrast to Rehman, Yasir Khan – a police constable who additionally lives in Police Strains, a secured a part of Peshawar the place essential authorities installations are – says the incident has shaken his confidence.
“We’re conscious of the assaults on police and safety officers,” the 29-year-old instructed Al Jazeera whereas standing close to the rubble of the mosque. “We count on assaults on checkpoints. However we may by no means have imagined an assault happening inside our compound. It’s so closely guarded.”
Kashif Aftab Abbasi, senior superintendent of police operations, says a lot of the deaths had been brought about when the roof of the mosque collapsed [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Deciding to go away his job has by no means as soon as occurred to him, he stated. “That is the job that feeds us. My father was within the police as properly. What else am I going to do if not this? My spouse requested me to stop the job and transfer again to our village, however I instructed her responsibility comes first.”
Kamran Khan, a authorities trainer, stated that when he noticed the information of the explosion on TV, he rushed to the blast website within the Police Strains compound. His brother Irfanullah in addition to his cousin Shafiq labored within the police division.
His brother was amongst these killed whereas his cousin was admitted to Woman Studying Hospital.
“We’re eight siblings, and Irfanullah was third.” Khan stated. “He labored as a authorities trainer like me for the longest time, however he all the time aspired to put on a uniform.”
Irfanullah, who joined the police in 2010, is survived by 5 youngsters, two sons and three daughters.
“I used to attempt to cease him from becoming a member of the pressure,” Khan stated. “However now, I can’t solely encourage his son to comply with in his father’s footsteps, I may also push my very own son to affix. I need them to serve the nation and honour Irfanullah’s identify.”
Abid Hussain is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @abidhussayn.