Peshawar, Feb 28 (NVI) A suicide bomber today struck at a prominent Madrassa in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, killing an influential Muslim cleric along with 5 others and injuring 12.
The bomber blew himself up at Madrassa-e-Haqqania in Akora Khattak in Nowshera in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the prayers.
The huge explosion killed Maulana Hamidul Haq, the seniormost cleric and caretaker of the Madrassa, and 5 other devotees and injured 12 others.
Among the injured were 3 policemen who were on security duties at the Madrassa.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) condemned the attack and hinted at the involvement of Pakistani State agencies.
“In the recent past, all the scholars and especially the political and religious leaders and workers who went against the purpose of the (Pakistani) State institutions have been targeted,” said TTP spokesman Muhammad Khorasani in a statement.
“The same organizations tried their best to justify the killing of the Mujahideen of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan…. The secret bloodthirsty organizations of Pakistan martyred the debilitated scholar Rabbani in Islamabad with knives in a very brutal way,” he said.
“Maulana Hamidul Haq Sahib, the heir of the same martyred scholar Rabbani (in whose veins the warm blood of the martyred Nation of Islam was circulating and who was glaring in the eyes of Pakistani institutions) was also removed from the path today very cleverly,” he said.
The TTP spokesman said Maulana Hamidul-Haq was “a preacher of truth, a good teacher and a fearless advocate of stable schools” and his “pure blood will not go in vain.”
Khorasani said this attack was “not only on the late Maulana, but on all religious schools, religious institutions and scholars.”
“Were the righteous people intimidated by such tricks, this bright lamp of Islam would have been extinguished,” he said. (NVI)
