PESHAWAR: A number of prominent religious scholars lost lives in attacks across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent years, prompting the police to beef up the security of leading clerics.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) leader Maulana Muhammad Idrees was the latest victim who was targeted in the Charsadda district on Tuesday.Police are investigating the case from various angles. The Islamic State-KP claimed responsibility for the attack.
The JUIF and other political parties protested the attacks on the religious personalities, terming it ‘failure’ of the government to protect them.Scores of prominent religious scholars, including revered cleric Maulana Hassan Jan, were killed over the last two decades.
In February last year, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami chief and former MNA Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani was martyred in a suicide attack in the historic Darul Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak, Nowshera.
Maulana Hamidul Haq was targeted when he was coming out of mosque after Friday prayers. His father Maulana Samiul Haq, who was a prominent religio-political leader and former senator, was martyred in Rawalpindi in 2018.
Another prominent religious scholar Mufti Munir Shakir was attacked with an improvised explosive device near his mosque in Urmar village on the outskirts of Peshawar in March 2025. He had huge following.
A popular scholar and a leader of the Awami National Party Maulana Khanzeb was martyred in Bajaur in July 2025. He was a powerful voice of the tribal belt and Pakhtuns who also contested elections for the National Assembly seat.
Earlier on July 30, 2023, a devastating suicide bombing at a religious-political gathering in Khar town in Bajaur claimed over 44 lives, including prominent local clerics who had gathered at a convention of the JUIF.
Even high-profile political religious leaders were not spared.Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of JUIF, has survived multiple assassination attempts over the years, including major attacks in Charsadda, Swabi and Dera Ismail Khan.
Last year in May, a suicide bomber, who was said to be from Azerbaijan, blew himself up close to a police car. The cops in the car were providing security to the route for Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s rally in Peshawar and were targeted when they intercepted the suicide bomber. His actual plan was to target the rally. Two cops were martyred in the blast.
These incidents are not isolated. Over the past several years, dozens of religious leaders have been shot, bombed, or ambushed in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Charsadda, Bannu and Waziristan.
Some were targeted for their sectarian identity, others for their political affiliations, and many simply for their influence within local communities. Many clerics now either travel accompanied by security guards or have limited their public appearances, while others are still without protection.Police have upgraded security of religious leaders in Peshawar following assassination of Maulana Idrees in Charsadda.
