Source: The Times of India

PESHAWAR: A bomb blast injured at least eight people on Monday at a mosque in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, officials said.

The bomb, planted inside a minority Shiite sect mosque in the crowded neighbourhood of Hashtnagri, went off just after evening prayers, they said.

“Eight people are injured in the bomb blast,” area police official Saleem Khan said.

Doctors at Peshawar’s main Lady Reading hospital said that the victims were in a stable condition.

Provincial police chief Malik Naveed said that it was a low-intensity blast.

“The bomb was planted in a room where the custodian of the mosque was sitting with some guests,” Naveed said.

Peshawar is located close to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal zones which border Afghanistan, where government forces have been battling pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants, but the city also has a history of sectarian violence.

Shiites account for about 20 percent of Pakistan’s 160 million-strong, Sunni-majority population.

The groups usually coexist peacefully but outbreaks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 4,000 lives across Pakistan since the late 1980s.

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Tags: Hashtnagri, mosque, peshawar, Shiite, Sunni