Lawyers have been targeted in the past by militants in various parts of Pakistan.
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Abdul Rehman Miankhel, a senior official at the government-run Civil Hospital, where the explosion occurred, told reporters that at least 70 people had been killed, with more than 112 wounded, as the casualty toll spiked from initial estimates. Afridi said most of the dead were lawyers who had gathered after Kasi’s body was brought to the hospital. Schools and markets were closed in Quetta, also in protest over the attack, which was claimed by a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group.
The motive behind the attack was unclear, but several lawyers have been targeted during a recent spate of killings in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan which has a history of militant and separatist violence. The group has been behind several acts of terrorism in Pakistan in recent years. The claim could not be independently verified.
Pakistani activists light candles Monday in Peshawar to pay tribute to the victims of a bombing in Quetta.
Even as militant attacks have been down sharply across Pakistan as a whole in the past two years, Baluchistan province remains a violent place apart.
Pakistan was in mourning on Tuesday after an attack targeting lawyers gathered at a hospital in Quetta killed at least 70 people.
“Those who even did not spare the hospital and carried out the suicide attack can not be called humans”, Ashraf said.
To express solidarity with the victims, many of which were lawyers, and their families, Pakistan’s Legal Fraternity will observe a country-wide, three-day boycott of courts on a call given by the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Pakistan Bar Council.
Another witness, lawyer Abdul Latif, said he arrived at the hospital to express his grief over Kasi’s killing.
Witnesses described horrifying scenes of bodies being scattered about and the injured screaming out and crying for help. Waliur Rehman said he was taking his ailing father to the emergency ward when the explosion shook the building, knocking them both to the ground. He said remains of the attacker had been found and authorities were trying to identify them. He says he believes he was about 200 meters (yards) away from the emergency department where the bomb struck. But he said he didn’t know he would “see the bodies of dozens of other lawyers” killed and wounded shortly after arriving.
There was no immediate explanation for the two claims of responsibility.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest province, has always been plagued by insurgency.
Pakistani police have raised the death toll from a hospital bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta and are now saying that there are 42 killed.
But in what was likely an opportunistic statement, the Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the Quetta attack later on Monday, though there have been instances of competing claims in previous attacks in Pakistan.
Sanaullah Zehri, chief minister in Baluchistan province, said both the bombing and Kasi’s slaying seemed to be part of a plot to disrupt peace in the provincial capital.
Police cordoned off the hospital following the blast, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief General Raheel Sharif paying visits to the wounded on Monday evening.
He also instructed health officials to provide the best treatment possible to those wounded in the attack.
“No one will be allowed to disturb the peace in the province that has been restored thanks to the countless sacrifices by the security forces, police and the people of Baluchistan”, he said in a statement.
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Local TV stations broadcast footage showing people running in panic around the hospital grounds.
