PESHAWAR, Oct 18: Eidul Azha prayers were offered with religious enthusiasm and fervour in the provincial metropolis on Wednesday.

However, following threats about possible sabotage attempts strict security measures were adopted at different mosques and the central Eidgah on Charsadda Road.

Heavy contingents of security personnel were deployed in sensitive areas, particularly in and around the worship places, to ensure protection to the people and their properties.

In rural areas, people avoided offering Eid prayers in open spaces (Eidgahs) and preferred to offer prayers in compounds, hujras and mosques.

`We offered prayers at our hujra (guesthouse) as there were reports about a possible attack on us,` said Fazal Malik,head of Adezai Qaumi Lashkar, while talking to Dawn.

He said that anti-Taliban volunteers had arranged their own security in the local mosques to foil any possible sabotage attempt. He said that many of his villagers had lost lives in attacks on mosques in past few years.

`We even avoided going to local cattle markets for buying sacrificial animals as my father and many relatives and supporters were killed in a suicide attack while they were buying animals at Mattani market,` Mr Malik recalled.

He said that majority of people preferred to buy sacrificial animals from places out of cattle markets to avoid attacks.

Similarly, the leaders of different peace bodies at Bazidkheland Badbher also offered Eid prayers at their hujras.

Meanwhile, Khyber PakhtunkhwaGovernor Engineer Shaukatullah offered Eidul Azha prayers along with other people on the lawns of Governor`s House. Also among them were some of the provincial ministers, parliamentarians, chief secretary Shahzad Arbab and senior government officials.

On Eid day, a number of representative figures from a cross-section of society also called on the governor at Governor`s House, Peshawar. Besides senators Ghulam Ali, Abdul Razzaq and Abdul Rasheed and tribal elders, some Peshawar-based diplomats of brotherly countries also called on the governor.

According to police officials, the security personnel continued checking and body search of people entering the main mosques in cantonment and city areas to avert any untoward incident in Peshawar.