Breaking News from Pastor Pervaiz Samuel PESHAWAR: Moving scenes were witnessed at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) where the relatives of the victims of the suicide attack rushed in panic to locate near and dear ones. At lease 78 people, including women and children, were killed while more than 120 sustained injuries in the suicide attack on 130-year-old All Saints Church on the Circular Road outside the old Kohati Gate on Sunday. A large number of worried people were seen searching for loved ones at the crowded hospital. They were making inquiries and going from the Accident and Emergency Department to the hospital wards and also the mortuary to know about the dead and wounded. The sight of mutilated bodies at the mortuary and the critically injured made them cry and cast a pall of gloom at the hospital. “Papa and Mama are injured in the blasts. We are close to the emergency unit,” said a young woman while talking to one of her relatives on phone. “Why are you crying?” she asked her elder sister as she finished the call. “It’s okay, we are there. I am just worried about them,” replied the elder sister. “It’s finished. They are dead. They killed my small children and brother. It is all over now and I have been left alone,” said another wailing woman who lost two of her children and a brother. Dressed in red clothes and wearing a shawl, she asked: “What is our sin? What wrong we did to them. Why did they kill my little children?” “Oh God, my beloved sister has died. Someone should bring her back to me,” said another woman as she wept and mourned the death of her younger sister. “Reach here quickly. His condition is not good,” said a weeping young boy, wearing white clothes stained with the blood of the victims, on the cell-phone. An eyewitness, Nazir Jan, said that two explosions took place at the site of the tragedy as soon as the Sunday prayers ended and the people started coming out of the church.“There was destruction everywhere after the dust kicked up by the blast had settled. The injured were crying for help and the body parts of the victims were scattered all over the place,” he said while narrating the tragic scene. He said that up to 400 worshippers were in the church at the time of the attack. “We were in a nearby Church when we heard a powerful blast followed by another one after two to three minutes,” said Usman Raheel.“My uncle, William Ghulam, principal of the Government High School No 4 Peshawar and his young son, who was a final year MBBS student at the Khyber Medical College, were killed in the attack,” he said. “William Ghulam’s wife and daughter, who is a first year student at the Edwardes College Peshawar, were also badly injured in the blast and are being treated at the hospital’s emergency unit,” he added. The emotionally charged relatives of the victims staged protest and chanted slogans against the PTI-led provincial government for failing to protect them. They also raised slogans against the authorities for the lack of doctors at the Lady Reading Hospital. “My brother is lying in the emergency unit but there is no doctor to treat him,” complained an angry man named Younas. The number of casualties from the twin blasts was so high that the LRH, the biggest public sector hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, ran out of beds. Many injured patients and a number of bodies of the dead were lying on the floor. As it was Sunday, most doctors and other staff were on leave. “Around 60 bodies and more than 120 injured have been brought to our hospital so far,” said LRH Chief Executive Prof Dr Arshad Javed. He feared that the number of the dead could rise as condition of some of the injured was critical. He said there was no shortage of doctors and medicines and all the doctors, nurses and paramedical staff were present to provide medical treatment to the injured.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 05:34:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015