MANSEHRA: Four persons, including two women, were killed and four others sustained critical injuries when two groups attacked each other with daggers and knives in a mosque in Torghar district on Thursday.

“Four people, including two women, were killed on a petty issue in Daba Madakhail area,” Dilroz Khan, the Torghar District Nazim, told reporters.

Said Rehman and Mohammad Zubair traded heated arguments when the latter asked the former not to sit on the rooftop of his house on Wednesday. The two men were pacified by the locals and issue was settled amicably.

However, Rehman and his family members enraged over the previous day’s reprimand, attacked with daggers and knives Zubair and his family when they had come in the local mosque for evening prayers.

The Zubair’s families also retaliated, and as a result, Zubair and Rehman were seriously injured. They died while being taken to hospital.

The female members of the Zubair’s family rushed to the mosque after hearing about the attack, but two of them, including Rubina Bibi and wife of Said Ahmad Khan, also came under attack and sustained serious wounds. They were shifted to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced them dead.

District nazim Dilroz Khan said that the injured, including Taj Deen, Bukhmeen Khan, Roqib Khan and Amanullah, were being treated at a local hospital.

He said that police reached the spot and started investigation into what led to the killing of four persons.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018