Grief enveloped Pakistan on Monday as
the official death toll from a suicide bombing at a public park in
Lahore rose to 69, with 341 people wounded.
But the local news media put the number of people killed at 71.
The Sunday’s suicide bombing was claimed
by the Pakistani Taliban’s Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction, which once declared
loyalty to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, saying it was targeting
Christians.
The attack within the power base of the
Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was Jamaat-ur-Ahrar’s fifth
bombing since December.
Reuters reports that at least
29 children enjoying an Easter weekend outing were among those killed
when the suicide bomber struck in a busy park in the eastern city of
Lahore. Pakistan is a majority-Muslim state but has a Christian
population of more than two million.
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.
Prime Minister Sharif arrived in Lahore
on Monday morning and visited Jinnah Hospital to show solidarity with
the victims. He said he was deeply grieved and vowed to bring the
culprits to justice.
Later, he met with senior government officials and pledged to eliminate terrorism, The New York Times reports.
“Our resolve as a nation and as a
government is getting stronger, and the cowardly enemy is trying for
soft targets,” Sharif said during the meeting. “Our goal is not only to
eliminate terror infrastructure but also the extremist mind-set, which
is a threat to our way of life.”
A military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Asim
Bajwa, 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.” However,
he gave no further details about the identities of those arrested or
whether they were connected to Sunday’s bombing.
Source: PUNCH.
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