Thousands of mourners gathered in Islamabad yesterday to start burying the 32 people killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque during Friday prayers, as the city tightened security and authorities arrested four people believed to have helped the bomber.
In Friday’s attack, a man opened fire at the Khadija Tul Kubra Imambargah compound on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital, then detonated a bomb that killed 32 people, as well as himself, and injured more than 170.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest of its kind in Islamabad in more than a decade, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Interior Minister Moshin Naqvi told a Press conference that four people, including the alleged mastermind of the attack, had been arrested following an operation in Peshawar and Nowshera.
During the operation, one counter-terrorism officer was killed and three more were wounded, he said.
While bombings are rare in heavily guarded Islamabad, this is the second such attack in three months and they have triggered fears of a return to violence in Pakistan’s major urban centres.
Security was visibly beefed up across the city, with police checkpoints set up on all main roads and streets leading to important sites. Police and elite commandos stood guard as funeral prayers for some of the victims were held in an open area near the Imambargah.
The government had boosted Islamabad’s security and would be taking further steps to make sure it was ‘foolproof’, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said.
Ashiq Hussain, who lost his 21-year-old nephew Mujtaba Ali in the attack, said the family was ‘broken’.
“I want to ask what sin this young man had committed that he died a useless death,” he added.
The injured, some in critical condition, remain in Islamabad hospitals. Yaqoob Bangash, an official at Islamabad’s largest public hospital, said major surgeries had been carried out and the hospital had moved on to minor surgeries.
Bangash, who works at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, said the hospital had sufficient resources to deal with the influx of patients after the attack.
The bomber had a history of travelling to Afghanistan, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif posted on Friday on X, blaming neighbouring India for sponsoring the assault, without providing evidence.
India’s foreign ministry condemned the mosque attack and rejected allegations of its involvement as ‘baseless’.
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