UPPER DIR: A suicide bomber ripped through a mosque packed for Friday prayers in a remote village of Upper Dir, killing at least 30 people, 12 children among them, and injuring dozens of others.

The village of Hayagay Sharqi is about 30kms east of the district headquarters.

The bomber came to the premises and asked to meet with someone and blew himself up when the man came out of the hall.

Fourteen injured people were admitted to hospitals in Dir and Sheringal and some of them were in critical condition.

There were no vehicles in the village and local people phoned police in Sheringal and Dir towns to seek help.

‘They asked us to send vehicles for taking the injured to hospitals,’ an official at the Sheringal police station said.

‘We have sent 10 to 12 vehicles,’ a police official said in Dir.

People who took part in rescue work said many bodies were badly mutilated.

‘Limbs were scattered in the mosque and outside,’ a man told Dawn. He said over 100 villagers were offering prayers when the blast took place.

According to some local people, the suspected bomber, aged between 20 and 22 years, had been encircled by youths and children and when they asked him to show his identity card he blew himself up.

Among the dead were Bakht Badshah and his sons, Khaista Rahman and Fazlur Rahman, Abdullah, Ismail, Salih Rahman, Sajjad, Taseer, Juma Said, Waqar, Ahmad Jan, Bacha Hameed, Mohammad Saeed, Ghulam, Khaista Mohammad, Bakht Badshah, Sabar Khan, Sultan Bahadar, Ghulam Ishaq, Ibrahim, Ziaullah, Hazrat Khan, Abid Khan, Sultan Bacha, Nasar, Israr, Jamsheed, Aminullah and Raham Zeb.

Rumours that more suicide bombers were in the area triggered panic among people.

It may be mentioned that local people had opposed the presence of Taliban who had gained a foothold in the remote Doog Darra.

In the second week of May, local people had forced militants to free about 12 Levies personnel they had kidnapped from Dir.

Local elders had also played a key role in getting a former Afghan official freed early this year. The official had been kidnapped from Chitral and kept in Doog Darra.

On May 17, planes pounded militants’ hideouts in Doog Darra, but apparently failed to inflict any casualty on the Taliban. Three non-combatants were killed.

On Thursday, Doog Darra Naib Nazim Abdul Rauf had claimed that the militants and their Afghan ‘commander’ had left the area. Local people reportedly took shelter in bunkers on hills after the blast.