GHALANAI: The death toll in Friday’s terrorist attack on a mosque in a remote village of Mohmand Agency has risen to 36 and it has been confirmed that it was an incident of suicide bombing, according to the local administration.

Four victims died overnight in different hospitals and it emerged that bodies of eight others had been taken away by relatives soon after the blast, officials said.

At least 24 tribesmen, four of them children, were reported to have been killed and 32 others suffered injuries in a blast in the mosque during Friday prayers in Ambar tehsil’s Payee Khan village, some 65km from here.

Assistant Political Agent of Upper Mohmand Haseeb-ur-Rehman confirmed that the toll had reached 36.

Thirteen victims were buried on Friday night and funeral prayers for 23 were offered on Saturday, according to officials.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Hidayat-ur-Rehman and Frontier Corps Inspector General Lt Gen Shaheen Mazhar Mehmood visited Ambar and gave away compensation to the families of the victims.

Addressing a tribal jirga in Payee Khan village, the governor expressed determination to follow extremists involved in heinous acts of terrorism to their last hideouts.

He offered Fateha for the deceased and prayed for the early recovery of the injured.

He announced that a government job would be provided to the heir of each deceased and free-of-cost medical treatment would be ensured for the injured.

The governor delivered cheques amounting to Rs400,000 to the family of each deceased and Rs150,000 to those of each injured.

He said that the government would make a significant contribution to the reconstruction of the mosque destroyed in the attack.

Later, the governor went to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Bajaur Agency, where he inquired after the health of the injured.

Meanwhile, security forces conducted a search operation after imposing curfew in Ambar and Upper Pandiali tehsils and blocking the road leading to Ambar at different checkpoints.

Local journalists were stopped at the Tar Ghai checkpoint and were not allowed to go to the blast site.

Noor Shah, a 75-year-old resident of Payee Khan village, was seen waiting at a checkpoint for reopening of the road. He had lost four grandsons in the blast.

“I was in Rawalpindi and received a phone call from the village that four of my grandsons had been killed in the blast,” he said.

He was trying to get permission from security personnel to proceed to his village to participate in the funerals of his grandsons, but for four hours he had been made to wait at the checkpoint, he added.

An official confirmed that the attack was an incident of suicide bombing, the first attack of this kind on a mosque in Mohmand.

Those killed in the bombing were identified as Wasal, 10, Jamshed, 9, Rizwan, 12, Farhad Khan, 12, Arab Gul, 15, Luqman, 15, Noorullah, Wahab Khan, Moder Khan, Waheed Gul, Shahab, Naeem, Ibrahim, Numan, Irfan, Hazrat Gul, Baserullah, Rehman Shah, Rahim Gul, Zakirullah, Shakir, Zubair, Mohammad Zeb, Rasool Khan, Fazl-i-Rabbi, Fazl-i- Wahid, Noorullah, Dawood Khan , Mushtaq, Ayub, Ghafoor Khan, Zar Wali, Zahir Shah, Dawood Shah, Wahidullah and Gulab Khan.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2016