According to a senior official who requested anonymity, 23 people have been detained by Pakistani police in connection with the blast at a mosque inside a police headquarters that resulted in the deaths of 101 people.
Under oath, a senior provincial police official told AFP that authorities are also looking into the possibility that people inside the compound helped coordinate the attack.
A senior official stated on Wednesday, “We have detained people from the police line (headquarters) to get to the bottom of how the explosive material made its way in and to see if any police officials were also involved in the attack.”
On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated explosives among a group of worshippers in the compound’s mosque after sneaking unnoticed into a highly sensitive compound in northwest Peshawar. This caused a wall to collapse and crushed officers.
“It’s possible that the attacker and facilitators had connections outside of Pakistan.”
According to him, some of the 23 people detained were also from the city and the former tribal areas that are close by and border Afghanistan.
One of the city’s most tightly controlled areas, home to the intelligence and counterterrorism bureaus as well as the regional secretariat next door, is the subject of an investigation by authorities into how a significant security breach could occur there.
Gripped by fear
On Tuesday, the head of the police force for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Moazzam Jah Ansari, told reporters that a suicide bomber entered the mosque as a guest and used 10 to 12 kilograms (about 22 to 26 pounds) of explosive material that had been brought to the location in pieces.
He went on to say that the attack might have been orchestrated by a militant group that was sometimes affiliated with Pakistan’s designated terrorist organization, Tehreek-i-Taliban.
It recalls more than a decade ago, when Peshawar was the focus of numerous terrorist attacks, and it is Pakistan’s deadliest attack in five years.
Naeemullah Jan, a 55-year-old building contractor in the city, stated, “The main fear is a second attack, another blast… a suicide bomber may blow himself up in a market.”
The mosque explosion, according to the police, was an act of retaliation against the police, who are on the front lines fighting a resurgence in militancy since the Afghan Taliban gained power across the border.
Muhammad Haneef Awan, 55, told AFP from a market in Peshawar, “Earlier I used to feel safe near the police; now when a police car or officers pass near me, I fear in my heart that they might be attacked and I will also be hurt.”
Don’t pass blame: Afghanistan
Pakistan’s ministers were warned by the Taliban government in Kabul to “not pass the blame to others” in the interim.
In a press conference, the foreign minister of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, stated, “They should see the problems in their own house…Afghanistan should not be blamed.”
Before the October elections, Pakistan is already being hampered by a massive economic downturn and political chaos.