QUETTA: Death toll in the Pashtoonabad Rehmania mosque explosion reached four as two more persons succumbed to their injuries during the past 24 hours.

Sources in the Bolan Medical College Hospital said that one injured who had received serious burns wounds in the blast died on Friday night.

Police said on Saturday that an FIR had been registered against unknown terrorists by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD).

Official sources said the mosque, which had been badly damaged in the blast, was sealed till further orders.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the terror attack.

Closed-circuit television cameras have been installed in most of the mosques in Quetta, but Rehmania mosque had no such facility. However, proper security arrangements were made inside the mosque for Friday prayers.

Maulana Rehmani, the son of prayer leader of Rehmania mosque Maulana Ataullah Rehmani who was martyred in the blast, claimed that they had received a threat two weeks ago and informed the police about it.

Maulana Rehmani said he had told MPA Mobeen Khliji, who visited his residence for offering Fateha for his father, that despite informing the authorities concerned no security arrangements had been made in and around the mosque.

However, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Abdul Razzaq Cheema said that the police had already declared 40 mosques, including Rehmania mosque, sensitive. He said he had told the mosque administration that the police and volunteers would jointly perform security duty.

Mr Cheema said that the police had been deployed outside the mosque while the internal security was responsibility of the mosque’s volunteers.

He said the police was providing security to 80 out of 618 mosques in Quetta.

“Providing security to all the 618 mosques is not possible for the police,” the DIG said.

A CTD official claimed that someone inside the mosque could be involved in planting an improvised explosive device under the chair of the prayer leader.

However, further investigation is under way.

Security of all sensitive mosques has been tightened.

Meanwhile, the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for Friday’s bomb attack on a convoy of the commandant of the Chaman Scouts.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2019