Peshawar civil secretariat evacuated after mosque threat alert

PESHAWAR: The Civil Secretariat in Peshawar was evacuated on Friday after a threat alert was issued for the mosque inside the complex, and all employees were told to leave their offices immediately, according to sources who spoke to Dawn and ARY News.

A senior secretariat official told Dawn that security at the building had been strengthened for almost three days, beginning soon after an explosion in Kohat. The official said the alert concerned the mosque located inside the secretariat. Employees quoted by Dawn said they were told to leave at once and were given no further instructions before departing. "We were told to leave immediately," employees told Dawn.

ARY News, citing sources within the secretariat, reported that all offices were being vacated and that most employees and officers had left following the evacuation directive. Police confirmed the evacuation, saying the secretariat had been closed in view of security threats, all offices had been cleared, and employees had been granted leave. The threat alert was for the mosque, not the entire secretariat, the official clarified.

Neither police nor secretariat officials specified the nature of the threat or indicated when normal work would resume. The evacuation came amid heightened security across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following recent attacks in the province.

Dawn's report also noted that a two-pronged assault on September 18 killed at least 23 people, including 15 police personnel, in the region, though it did not explicitly connect that attack to Friday's evacuation. Dawn did not provide a date for the Kohat explosion mentioned by the secretariat official.

ARY News separately reported that Pakistan shot down eight drones launched from Afghanistan on September 23, with four intercepted near the Torkham border and four in mountainous areas near Kohat. Security sources told ARY that the alleged intrusion was evidence of Afghan Taliban support for terrorists, and that Pakistani forces had destroyed several Afghan Taliban positions in the Kurram sector in response to provocative firing. The report did not directly link those incidents to the secretariat evacuation.

The Civil Secretariat houses the administrative offices of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. No casualty from the evacuation was reported. Police did not name any group in connection with the threat.