PESHAWAR: Seven people, including leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Sami Group (JUI-S) Maulana Hamid Ul Haq Haqqani, were martyred while fifteen others injured in a suicide bomb blast in Darul Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak in district Nowshera on Friday.
According to police, the blast occurred in the first row as the worshippers were leaving the Masjid after the Friday payer. Akora Khattak is located about 60 kilometres (35 miles) in east of Peshawar.
The injured were rushed to hospitals in Nowshera.
At least 4 dead, 20 injured as blast rips through Darul Uloom Haqqania in KP’s Nowshera
Inspector General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Zulfiqar Hameed said the target of suicide bomber was Maulana Hamid Ul Haq Haqqani, the son of the late Maulana Sami Ul Haq, who had been previously assassinated mysteriously in Rawalpindi.
Maulana Hamid was seriously injured in the blast. He was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to injuries during emergency medical treatment, the IGP said.
He said that police teams were present at the site of the explosion, and a search operation was also under way in the surroundings. Forensics and investigation teams have already been dispatched to the incident site, and the district police officer was also present there, added the police chief.
The Masjid is located inside the compound of the seminary, whose students were set to go on leave, as it marked the final day of their academic year.
Security arrangements at the Masjid included several policemen and a police mobile van, while seminary workers also monitored visitors.
The hospital spokesperson said emergency had been declared at the medical facility.
Some reports suggest that the blast took place near the gate of the Masjid from where Maulana Hamid was returning to his residence.
Four bodies have been kept at the Qazi Hussain Ahmed Medical Complex, while the injured are receiving treatment.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur strongly condemned the explosion, calling it a tragic and deplorable act. He directed authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into all aspects of the incident and submit a comprehensive report.
However, in a statement, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) spokesperson Aslam Ghauri has also condemned the suicide blast and termed it deeply tragic.
He urged party workers and volunteers to extend full cooperation in relief efforts. He also appealed to JUI-F members to donate blood for the injured.
AFP adds: A suicide attack at an Islamic religious school known as the “University of Jihad” — where key Taliban leaders have studied — killed seven people on Friday, police said.
“Initial reports suggest the blast occurred after Friday prayers as people were gathering to greet Hamid ul Haq. It appears to be a suicide attack,” Abdul Rasheed, the district police chief, told AFP.
The explosion left seven dead including the suicide bomber and 16 injured, three of whom are in a critical condition, Rasheed said, adding that an Afghan national is among the dead.
Rasheed said that Haqqani, the head of a local rightwing Islamist party, appeared to be the target of the bomber.
He was the son of Sami ul Haq Haqqani, who was assassinated in 2018 and known as the “father of the Taliban” for teaching the insurgent group’s founder Mullah Omar at the same religious school.
The explosion happened as people gathered for weekly Friday prayers, the most important day of the week.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and interior minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the incident as a “terrorist” act.
The sprawling campus in Akora Khattak is home to roughly 4,000 students who are fed, clothed and educated for free.
It became known as the “University of Jihad” for its fiery ideology and the number of Taliban fighters it has produced.
Omar, who led an insurgency against the United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan before his death in 2013, graduated from the school along with Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the feared Haqqani network which took its name from the school.
The Haqqani network is responsible for some of the worst attacks in Afghanistan.
Jalaluddin Haqqani was the father of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current interior minister for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, himself also a graduate of the school.
Abdul Mateen Qani, the spokesman for the interior ministry in Kabul, said the government “strongly condemn the attack” and blamed it on the jihadist Islamic State group.
IS, a rival of the Taliban movement but with which it shares a similar hardline Islamic ideology, has been responsible for several attacks against the Taliban government since it retook power in 2021.
No group has yet claimed the bombing.
The school has sat at the crossroads of regional militant violence for years, educating many Pakistanis and Afghan refugees — some of whom returned home to wage war against the Russians and Americans or preach jihad.
For decades, Pakistani ‘madrassas’ have served as incubators for militancy, indoctrinating tens of thousands of refugees who have few other options for education than the fiery lectures from hardline clerics.
Rather than crack down on the institutions, successive governments in Islamabad — which rely on the support of Islamist parties in coalition governments — have largely given the schools a free hand.
The Taliban surged back to power in Kabul in August 2021 after foreign forces withdrew and the former government collapsed.
Militancy has since rebounded in the border regions with Afghanistan.
Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.
Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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