Pakistan mosque suicide bomber ‘was in police uniform’
- Hundreds of police were attending afternoon prayers at headquarters in Peshawar on Monday when the blast erupted, a wall collapsed and crushed officers
- ‘Those on duty did not check [the bomber] because he was in a police uniform … It was a security lapse’, provincial police chief said
The suicide bomber who killed more than 80 police officers at a mosque inside a sensitive compound earlier this week entered wearing a uniform and helmet, a provincial police chief said Thursday.
Hundreds of police were attending afternoon prayers inside what should have been a tightly controlled police headquarters in the northwest city of Peshawar on Monday when the blast erupted, causing a wall to collapse and crush officers.
“Those on duty did not check him because he was in a police uniform … It was a security lapse,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, the head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police force, told a news conference.
The suspect is shown in CCTV images arriving at the gates on a motorcycle before walking through a security checkpoint and asking officers where the mosque was located.
Authorities are investigating how a major breach could happen in one of the most sensitive areas in the city, which houses the intelligence and counterterrorism bureaus.
“Our comrades were martyred in this uniform, but the bomber made it worthless for us,” Amanullah Khan, a police officer on duty at a checkpoint in Peshawar, wearing a bulletproof jacket and a helmet with a Kalashnikov in his hands, said.