Shock and grief have enveloped Pakistan as the official death toll from Sunday's suicide attack in Lahore rose to 69, with 341 people wounded. The local news media put the number of people killed at 71.
Police investigators said a suicide bomber had detonated explosives in a vest during the evening rush hour on Sunday at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest public parks in this eastern city.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, admitted responsibility for the attack, saying it had targeted Christians. Pakistani officials were sceptical about the claim, as most of those killed and wounded were Muslims, but because Sunday was Easter, a large number of Christian families had come to the park.
Prime minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Lahore yesterday and visited Jinnah Hospital. He said he was deeply grieved and vowed to bring the culprits to justice. Later, he met senior government officials and pledged to eliminate terrorism. "Our resolve as a nation and a government is getting stronger and the cowardly enemy is trying for soft targets," Mr Sharif said during the meeting. "Our goal is not only to eliminate terror infrastructure but also the extremist mindset, which is a threat to our way of life."
Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa, a military spokesman, said intelligence raids had been carried out in three cities in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, after the attack, and that a "number of terrorists and facilitators were arrested". He gave no further details about the identities of those arrested or whether they were connected to the bombing.
According to hospital sources, 252 people had been admitted to hospitals in the city by 10am yesterday and 89 had been discharged. Of the wounded, 26 were in critical condition, officials said.
An initial police report said four young men had been approached by a police officer near the entrance to the park on Sunday evening. Three of them managed to escape, but the fourth ran through the gate and detonated his explosives.
High alert
In Lahore, widely considered the cultural and political capital of Pakistan, most of the commercial centres and shopping areas were closed and security forces were on high alert.
Separately, at least 2,000 protesters continued a sit-in outside parliament in the nation's capital, Islamabad. The protesters had rampaged through the city on Sunday after holding a rally in neighbouring Rawalpindi to express support for Mumtaz Qadri, a former police guard who was executed on February 29th for the 2011 killing of a governor, Salman Taseer.
Taseer had called for changes to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, saying they were being used to persecute religious minorities. To hardline Islamists and religious parties, any change to the blasphemy laws is unacceptable, and they have campaigned violently against such proposals.
On Monday, the protesters made a raft of demands to the government. They included declaring Qadri an official martyr, imposition of Sharia, the legal code of Islam, in Pakistan and the immediate execution of all those convicted of blasphemy.
Army troops had been deployed in Islamabad to secure the parliament and other important buildings, including the headquarters of the supreme court and a large complex of apartments for members of parliament. The attack in Lahore, which is also Mr Sharif’s political stronghold, has drawn new attention to the government’s efforts to stem terrorism and has renewed calls for action against militant groups in Punjab.
– (New York Times service)