Peshawar mosque attack: TTP claims responsibility; death toll touches 90, over 150 injured

The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack at a mosque in northwestern Peshawar city. The attack happened during the afternoon prayers. The police acknowledged that it was a case of security lapse.

A Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque full of worshippers on Monday during afternoon prayers, resulting in at least 90 fatalities and more than 150 injuries. In Pakistan's unrest-ridden northwest Peshawar city, the event occurred in a high-security area, and the majority of those killed were police personnel.

According to authorities, there are now 90 people dead. More than 150 people had also been injured, according to Muhammad Asim Khan of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, as reported by the news agency ANI. Senior government official Shafiullah Khan told AFP that the death toll was expected to rise even higher as bodies were still being pulled from the rubble.

According to a report by the news agency PTI, the bomber was a member of the terrorist organisation known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

According to TTP's Umar Khalid Khurasani, the suicide strike was one of several reprisal attacks to exact revenge for the loss of his brother, who was slain in Afghanistan last year, PTI said. Around 1.40 pm, worshippers, including members of the police, army, and bomb squad, were doing the Zuhr (afternoon) prayers inside the mosque in the Police Lines neighbourhood.

GeoTV stated that Sahibzada Noor Ul Amin, the mosque's imam, also died in the explosion.

At least 300 to 400 police officers were in the neighbourhood at the time of the explosion, according to officials. A police officer informed media that several people were trapped under the rubble when a section of the structure fell.