A powerful blast killed at least five people and injured 20 others during Friday prayers at a mosque in northwest Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province ahead of the fasting month of Ramazan, police said.

The blast claimed the life of Hamidul Haq Haqqani, chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) and caretaker of the Madrassa-e-Haqqania, located in Akora Khattak town of Nowshera district, Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah confirmed.

Born in 1968, Hamidul Haq became chief of his JUI (Sami Group) after the death of his father Maulana Sami ul Haq.

IGP, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Zulfiqar Hameed said the blast is suspected to be a suicide bombing and Hamidul Haq appeared to be the target. “We had provided six security guards to Hamidul Haq,” he said.

DPO Nowshera district Abdur Rasheed said the blast occurred during ‘Jumma’ prayer.

The Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa propagates the Hanafi Deobandi school of Sunni Islam. It was founded by Maulana Abdul Haq along the lines of the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in India, where he had taught.

It has been dubbed the “University of Jihad” due to its methods and content of instruction, along with the future occupations of its alumni.

A number of leading members of the Taliban, including former chief Akhtar Mansour, studied here.

Rescue teams rushed to the site and removed the bodies and evacuated the injured to the hospital. An emergency was declared in both Nowshera and Peshawar hospitals.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Governor Faisal Karim Kundi have condemned the suicide blast.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leaders have appealed for blood donation for the injured.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)