ISLAMABAD: At least five people were killed and 20 injured in a suicide blast at a mosque of an Islamic religious school known as the “university of jihad” in Nowshera district of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Friday.
Among the dead were Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq Haqqani, head of Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania school, the seminary in Nowshera’s Akora Khattak town where key Afghan Taliban leaders have studied. Mullah Omer, the slain founder of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, was also an alumni of this religious school.
Graduates of the seminary include current Afghan Taliban leaders Amir Khan Muttaqi, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Abdul Latif Mansoor, Maulvi Ahmad Jan, Mullah Jalaludin Haqani, Maulvi Qalamudin, Arifullah Arif and Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa.
The explosion occurred in the main prayer hall as people gathered for weekly Friday prayers were leaving the mosque.
KP police chief Zulfiqar Hameed confirmed that it was a suicide attack and that three policemen were also injured. “More than a dozen police officers were guarding the mosque when the attack occurred, and Haq’s seminary also had its own security,” he said.
“It appears that Hamid Haqqani (seminary’s slain chief) was the target,” Hameed added.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, which came on the last Friday ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Yawar Zia, a police constable, who was injured in the attack, said he was on security duty at the seminary when the blast happened and splinters hit him. “After offering prayer, Hamid-ul-Haq, accompanied by his guards, was leaving the mosque when the powerful explosion occurred,” the wounded official said.
Eyewitnesses described a chaotic scene, with blood and body parts scattered all over the place. They said the casualties could have been much higher had the bomber struck during the prayers.
Haqqani, the son of slain prominent Pakistani cleric Sami-ul-Haq Haqqani, known as the “father of Taliban, was a vice-chancellor of the sprawling seminary, located 60 km from the provincial capital of Peshawar. Following his father’s assassination in 2018, he also became chairman of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) political party. He had also previously served as a member of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007.
Haq was also among the few who called on the world and Pakistan to immediately recognise the Taliban govt and establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
Last year, he led a delegation of religious scholars to Afghanistan for “religious diplomacy” meetings with Taliban leaders.
His seminary had faced controversy in the past as its students were accused of involvement in the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. The madrasa, however, denied any connection with the suspects.