[Pak Daily Times] Police investigating a kaboom on a preaching centre in northwest Pakistain said on Friday they had no clear idea who could have been behind the blast.The blast at an Islamic preaching centre in troubled Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
city on Thursday evening killed at least nine preachers and maimed more than 50, officials said.
The Pak Taliban strongly denied
No, no! Certainly not!
any link to the attack on the centre run by Tableeghi Jamaat, a respected organization which enjoys good relations with the authorities as well as other religious groups.
"We are investigating it but we cannot blame any group until completion of our investigations," senior police official Mohammad Faisal told AFP on Friday.
Militant groups are usually quick to claim responsibility for attacks but no one has come forward to admit Thursday's blast.
Faisal said the centre was an easy target for the attackers.
"This was the most soft target for the attackers, apparently they want to terrorise the people by bombing innocent people," Faisal said.
He said the bomb was planted inside a can of cooking oil near a pillar in the main hall of the centre.
Medics in the city's main Lady Reading Hospital said 28 injured were still under medical treatment with six at death's door.
Thursday's attack was the second on a Tableeghi Jamaat centre in recent years.
Last year in January, a similar type of bomb in Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
Valley -- where schoolgirl rights activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head -- hit a preaching centre, killing 22 people and wounding more than 80. The Taliban also denied any involvement in that bombing.
Residents in Peshawar were in grief and shock over the attack saying it was a peaceful place where they came for worship.
"This attack was really depressing, we never thought that anyone can attack this peaceful place," Daud Khan, a milk seller in Peshawar, told AFP.
Police said they have tightened the security at the centre with a body search for all visitors and installing a walk-through gate scanner.