Shafiullah Khan, the deputy commissioner of the city of Peshawar, where the bombing took place on Monday, said 177 other people, most of them police officers, had been injured and that 57 of them were still hospitalized, some in critical condition.
Officials said the bomber was standing in the first row of the crowded mosque when he set off his explosive vest during afternoon prayer, causing the roof to cave in. The death toll may rise as bodies continue to be recovered from the rubble of the mosque, which is inside a walled compound containing the police headquarters.
About 300 worshippers were in the mosque at the time of the blast, said Ijaz Khan, the Peshawar police chief, NBC News reported.
“A portion of the building collapsed and some of the people are alive but stranded there,” he said Monday. “Our teams are engaged in cutting the steel to recover them.”
MP/PR
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