By IANS,
Islamabad : More than 50 people were killed when a suicide bomber, said to be a teenaged boy, exploded himself inside a packed mosque during Friday prayers in northwest Pakistan, media reports said.
The deafening afternoon blast devastated the shrine in Ghondi area of Jamrud district, leaving more than 125 people also injured, many crippled for life.
Hundreds were offering prayers in the mosque, located in a mountainous area in Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan when the suicide bomber struck.
Some reports said there were about 400 people in the mosque, which partially collapsed following the explosion, apparently burying many under the debris.
At least 53 people were killed, Xinhua quoted Pakistan’s ARY TV as saying.
Some 50 critically injured were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar city some 50 km from the blast site.