PESHAWAR, Aug 5: A group of militants gunned down a member of Adezai Qaumi Lashkar after dragging him out of a mosque at the village during taraveeh prayer, eyewitnesses and police said on Friday.

Dilawar Khan, the lashkar head, said that one Dawar Khan was performing taraveeh prayer on Thursday night when a group of masked armed men entered the Adezai village mosque, dragged him out and shot him dead in front of the mosque.

The villagers, he said, were witnessing the gory scene, but could not help the peace body worker. The terrorists later escaped towards the tribal region in the dark of night. Mr Dialwar said that the militants could not have escaped had the police chased them.

“My house is located away from the area and I came to know about the incident when the terrorists had escaped,” he said and added that deputy chief of the peace body Fazal Malik's residence was close to the mosque, but he also could not offer resistance.

The lashkar head said that the peace body workers needed proper government support, but the rulers were reluctant to help them. He said that in the prevailing situation the volunteers had the only option to stay indoors as the government was not ready to provide them with arms, ammunition and food items.

An official of the Matni police station said that relatives of the deceased had not nominated anyone for the killing. However, a case has been registered against the unknown accused.

Meanwhile, following the killing of the peace body worker by militants, security was beefed up around different worship places for the Friday prayers in Peshawar.

It was observed that police personnel and volunteers at different mosques conducted body search of people while entering the mosques. The police were also deployed around the mosque buildings.

They had also closed different roads in Peshawar cantonment by placing barbed wire and the traffic was diverted to the link roads in order to provide foolproof security to the faithful.

When contacted, SSP Peshawar Waqaruddin said that policemen in plain clothes had also been deployed at different places, including bazaars, to ensure security of people and avoid any untoward incident in the city.