Islamabad, Dec. 21: Fifty four people were killed and over 100 injured today after a suicide bomber blew himself up during Id-ul-Zuha prayers in a packed mosque in Charsadda town, northwestern Pakistan.

Former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was praying at the time of the blast, escaped unhurt. However, his son Mustafa and a nephew were wounded. Sherpao, who had ordered several crackdowns on Islamic militants as minister, had survived an earlier suicide bombing in April this year.

Body parts and shoes were scattered around the mosque floor covered in pools of blood. Police found a torn jacket, believed to belong to the attacker, and ball bearings aimed at causing maximum damage.

The suspected bomber, sitting in a middle row among the worshippers, detonated his bomb as prayers ended and people gathered around the politician to greet him, said a police official. “It’s inhuman. No Muslim can do such a thing on the day of Id,” said Mohammad Asad, 45, who lost his two cousins in the attack. Around 1,200 worshippers were at the mosque at the time of the explosion.

“We feel that Sherpao was the target. There are so many mosques in that area. Why did the bomber select that mosque for the attack?” interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah said.

This was the fourth suicide bombing in Pakistan since President Musharraf lifted emergency. He had cited growing militancy as a main reason behind his imposition of emergency.

Musharraf, who said hours after lifting emergency rule last weekend that the government had “broken the back” of the militancy, condemned today’s attack. Charsadda is about 20km from Peshawar.

After the bombing, dozens of police and intelligence agents raided an Islamic school in the nearby village of Turangzai and arrested seven students, some of them Afghans, two police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.