PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD: The death toll from a suicide attack on a mosque in Peshawar surged to 62 on Saturday, while the federal and provincial governments claimed a breakthrough in the ongoing investigation, saying the suicide bomber and other suspects and facilitators had been identified.

“All the three suspects behind the deadly blast have been identified,” said Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed while lauding the efforts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and security agencies for a ‘splendid’ job. Police would trace and arrest the suspects within a day or two, he said in a video statement posted on Twitter after the Peshawar police chief at a presser disclosed, “We have broken the network and also accessed the family of the suicide bomber.”

The official claims came the day the counter-terrorism department of KP police registered an FIR of the devastating gun and bomb attack in which 57 Shia men lost their lives and 194 others sustained injuries inside the Koocha Risaldar mosque shortly before Friday prayers in the Peshawar’s old city neighbourhood. The death toll rose to 62 with the demise of five of the 10 critically injured victims, a Lady Reading Hospital official confirmed on Saturday.

Sharing details of ‘significant progress’ in the investigations, KP government spokesperson Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif and Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) of Peshawar Mohammad Ijaz Khan told a presser that the suicide bomber and his facilitators had not only been identified, but some of them were also taken into custody.

Barrister Saif said the rickshaw the bomber had used to reach the target had been impounded. “We have identified the suicide bomber, the facilitators and also arrested some of them in connection with the attack,” he said.

Other members of the network would also be arrested within 48 hours, Barrister Saif claimed, adding that the pistol used in the attack had been seized and forensic samples collected from the crime-scene.

With the help of the pistol and CCTV footage, vital clues to the attacker had been obtained, said Peshawar CCPO Mohammad Ijaz Khan. Police investigators collected body parts of the suicide bomber and other evidence from the scene, he said. “They also collected fingerprints from the pistol and spent bullet casings from the scene,” the police chief added.

He said police investigators pored over footage of all CCTV cameras within a five-kilometre radius of the mosque. They also geo-fenced the street and nearby areas, CCPO Khan said, adding that with human and technical assistance investigators approached the driver of the rickshaw, which was used in the attack.

The police chief said it emerged during the initial investigation that the attacker was highly trained. He must have received at least three to four years of training, he said. However, he added, the police had managed to break the network and accessed the family of the suicide bomber. “We will also apprehend the rest of the network within the next 48 hours,” he vowed.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022