A bomb exploded at a mosque in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s South Waziristan district during Friday prayers, injuring JUI district chief Abdullah Nadeem and three others, police said.

District Police Officer Asif Bahader told Dawn.com that an improvised explosive device (IED) blast occurred at 1:45 pm at Maulana Abdul Aziz Mosque on Azam Warsak Bypass Road, with the device planted in the mosque’s pulpit.

“In the explosion, Abdullah Nadeem, the district chief of JUI, was seriously wounded,” he said. “Three others, also belonging to the JUI, have sustained minor injuries.”

The injured were identified as Rehmanullah, Mullah Noor, and Shah Behran, a statement issued by the police said.

DPO Bahader added that all injured individuals had been taken to the District Headquarters Hospital for immediate medical assistance.

“The police have also reached the site of the blast and are collecting evidence,” he said, adding that further investigations were underway.

District Police Spokesman Habib Islam told Dawn.com that no group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

“Maulana Abdullah had been receiving death threats for quite some time,” he said. “He was also attacked about seven or eight months ago.”

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman condemned the mosque blast, saying its sanctity had been violated in the holy month of Ramazan.

“The blast is tragic and condemnable,” he said in a statement.

He urged the government and institutions to brief the nation on the situation in Balochistan and KP, adding that lawlessness and other key issues in both provinces were being ignored in parliament.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the blast in a statement from his office, stating that the incident “violated” the sanctity of the mosque.

“The sanctity of the mosque was violated during the holy month of Ramazan,” Naqvi was quoted as saying. “The blast … is a cowardly act of the enemy.”

The interior minister said that the “beasts” who carried out the attack deserve no concessions and prayed for the speedy recovery of Maulana Abdullah and the other injured.

Mosques, particularly during Friday prayers when large congregations gather, have been targeted in KP in the past as well.

Last month, six people, including JUI-S leader Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani, were killed and 15 injured when a suicide blast ripped through the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in KP’s Nowshera district.

On January 30, 2023, a blast inside a mosque shook Peshawar’s Police Lines area, with officials saying that at least 59 people were killed and 157 were injured.

The explosion ripped through the mosque in Peshawar’s Red Zone area where between 300 and 400 people — mostly police officers — had gathered for prayers. The suicide blast blew away the wall of the prayer hall and an inner roof.

This toll rose to 101 two days later, the KP health department said in a statement.

In 2022, a powerful suicide blast ripped through the crowded Jamia Masjid Koocha Risaldar in Peshawar. The bomber first killed the policeman deployed at the imambargah’s main gate and then entered the premises to blow himself up inside the main hall, where a large number of worshippers were offering Friday prayers.