Peshawar church bombings toll hits 81; over 145 injured

The death toll of twin suicide bombings at a church in Peshawar has reached 81, Geo News reported. The tragedy came to pass after two suicide attackers blew themselves up outside a church near Qissa Khawani bazaar here on Sunday. According to latest reports at least 145 people were injured in the attacks. Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) cordoned off the site of crime after what is said to be the Pakistan’s deadliest attack on the Christian community. The dead and injured, some of them seriously, were rushed to different hospitals of Peshawar including Lady Reading Hospital. AFP adds: The two attackers struck at the end of a service at All Saints Church in Peshawar, the main town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which has borne the brunt of a bloody extremist insurgency in recent years.There were 34 women and seven children among the dead. Pakistan's umbrella Taliban movement claimed responsibility, saying it had set up a new faction, Junood ul-Hifsa, to kill foreigners to avenge US drone strikes on Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives. "We carried out the suicide bombings at Peshawar church and will continue to strike foreigners and non-Muslims until drone attacks stop," Ahmad Marwat, a spokesman for the group, told AFP by telephone. In June, the group claimed responsibility for killing 10 foreign climbers at a base camp of Nanga Parbat, the second highest mountain in Pakistan after K-2.

Pope Francis also spoke out against the violence, calling it "a bad choice of hatred and war". The small and largely impoverished Christian community suffers discrimination in the overwhelmingly Muslim-majority nation but bombings against them are extremely rare. Schoolteacher Nazir Khan, 50, said at least 400 worshippers were greeting each other after the service when there was a huge explosion. "A huge blast threw me on the floor and as soon as I regained my senses, a second blast took place and I saw wounded people everywhere," Khan told AFP. An AFP reporter saw shreds of human flesh and bloodstains on the walls and floor of the church, whose windows had been ripped out by the blast. Pages of a Bible were scattered near the altar and rice meals mingled with dust on the floor amid shattered benches. Walls were gouged with ball bearings used in the explosives, he said. Grieving relatives blocked the main Grand Trunk Road highway with bodies of the victims to protest against the killings, an AFP reporter said. Christians in Karachi, Lahore, Multan and other cities also staged protest rallies to condemn the attacks and demand state protection for their lives and properties, AFP reporters said. In the southern port city of Karachi angry protesters clashed with police when they tried to clear a road in Isa Nagri, a low-income Christian neighbourhood.In the town of Gojra in Punjab province in 2009, a mob burned 77 houses and killed seven Christens.