Police trust shattered by attack

THE suicide bomber who killed more than 80 police officers at a mosque inside a sensitive compound earlier this week entered wearing a uniform and helmet, a provincial police chief said yesterday.

Hundreds of police were attending afternoon prayers inside what should have been a tightly-controlled police headquarters in the north-west city of Peshawar on Monday when the blast erupted, causing a wall to collapse and crush officers.

“Those on duty didn’t check him because he was in a police uniform... It was a security lapse,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, the head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police force said.

The suspect is shown in CCTV images arriving at the gates on a motorcycle before walking through a security checkpoint and asking officers where the mosque was located.

Authorities are investigating how a major breach could happen in one of the most sensitive areas in the city, which houses the intelligence and counter-terrorism bureaus.

“Our comrades were martyred in this uniform, but the bomber made it worthless for us,” Amanullah Khan, a police officer on duty at a checkpoint in Peshawar, wearing a bulletproof jacket and a helmet with a Kalashnikov in his hands, told AFP. “Now I will doubt the uniformed officials as well as other people, which is very sad, and has created distrust.”

It is Pakistan’s deadliest assault in several years, and the worst since violence resurged in the northwest bordering Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021.

Yesterday, police officials revised down the death toll, putting it at 83 policemen and one woman civilian.

The assault has put a scarred city on edge, harking back to when Peshawar was at the centre of rampant violence carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. Analysts say Islamist militant groups, which are highly factional, have become emboldened since US and Nato troops withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Taliban swept into Kabul, with Islamabad accusing Afghanistan’s new rulers of failing to secure their borders. Ansari blamed militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, an occasional affiliate of the TTP, for the attack. The TTP has distanced itself from the Peshawar blast, claiming it no longer attacks mosques.

Police said they had a “fair idea” about the bomber’s identity, after matching his head, found at the scene, with security footage. At least 23 people had been detained.