The Sunday prayers at the All Saints Church inside the Kohati Gate area of Peshawar ended in tragedy as two suicide bombers dressed in police uniforms blew themselves up while people were coming out and killed 78 people, 34 of them women, apart from injuring over 100. This is a major terrorist strike on a church though, last year protestors burnt and ransacked St. Paul’s church in Mardan, over 60 km from Peshawar. One of the terrorists detonated himself outside the church whereas the other person entered the compound where at least 600 people were present according to the eyewitnesses and worshippers.
Seven children were killed and 37 of them are injured. Eleven persons are critical, after the bomb blast, fifty doctors and scores of medical personnel grappled with the severely wounded many of them women and children at Lady Reading hospital. Eleven of those injured in the Kohati Gate blast have been evacuated to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar for emergency medical treatment.
Police said that the terrorists opened fire at the security guards at the entrance of the church, possibly killing one. An eyewitness Ahmed Ali who lives near the church told a private TV channel that the blasts took place around 11 a.m. near the church when he saw a person blowing himself up and a little later another man did the same thing. The blast shattered the glass panes of nearby houses including his own, Mr. Ali said.
The death toll is expected to rise as many of the injured are in a critical condition. While the police say it was a suicide bombing no group has as yet taken responsibility for this. Security agencies were quoted as saying that each of the bombers was carrying six kg of explosives. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) government has decided to tighten the security for minorities and institutions after this incident.
All Saints Memorial church with its distinctive Saracen architecture first opened for service in December 1883. In a statement online, the Rt. Rev. Humphrey S. Peters of Peshawar has condemned the suicide attack and said it was a total failure of the new KPK government which has failed to provide security to the minorities in the province. He said he spoke to one of the parish members who lost his aunt and nephew in this attack. Among the dead were a number of Sunday School children and choir members of the Church who were all in the compound at the time of the blasts.
The Voice team reached the incidence right after 5 hours of the occurrence from Lahore. The team included Mr. Khurram Akhtar, Mr. Shahid Anthony, Mr. Napolean Qayyum, Mr. Gohar Altaf and Mr. Imran Zafar. The blood and the flesh were still there in the church. The Voice team did the initial fact finding and reached the Lady reading hospital for helping the brothers and sisters injured and the children unaccompanied. The team met Rt. Rev. Humphrey peters and also met the DMS of the hospital. The Voice team received the whole list of the injured, and the deceased/martyred brothers and sisters. After doing necessary arrangements in the hospital the Voice team went back to the colony for preparation of the funerals of about 45 people including children who were died at the spot and the bodies were handed over to the families instantly. Meanwhile there was all round condemnation of the bombing and protest rallies were being taken out in some parts of the country. Churches across the country have announced three-day mourning in protests.
The Peshawar Diocese was created in 1980 and it is one of the largest in the country. The total number of Christians living in the KPK Province is around 100,000 out of a provincial population of around 17 million, according to the Diocese website. Last September in Mardan over an hour’s drive from Peshawar, a protest against an allegedly “blasphemous” film turned violent resulting in the burning and ransacking of St. Paul’s Church and the school, the library, the vicarage and two other houses inside the premises.
Update:
The Voice Society helped the injured and the deceased’s families financially, morally and spiritually by paying several visits to the houses of the affected people and helped them by all means.