The Sunni militant group, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria, has also garnered some support and wanna-be affiliates surface in Pakistan.
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Bomb disposal unit chief Abdul Razzaq said it was a suicide attack. Police found the limbs of the bomber.
Yet lawyers also represent a powerful segment of Pakistan’s civil society, which has played a key role in turning popular opinion against Islamic militant groups such as the Taliban. In any case, doctors warned that the toll could rise because some of the injured were in a serious condition.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has also said it was behind the deadliest attack in Pakistan so far this year, a bombing in a crowded Lahore park that killed 75 people on Easter Sunday. Army chief Raheel Sharif visited the injured in the Civil Hospital. Baluchistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri agreed with that analysis. The spokesperson expressed sympathy with the ones who had lost their relatives in the attack and said that such incidents only strengthened the resolve to fight militancy around the world.
The blast took place following a number of lawyers and some journalists amassed at the hospital after the death of Bilal Anwar Kasi, the president of the Balochistan Bar Association. Gunfire followed the explosion.
Television footage from the site showed scenes of chaos, with panicked mourners fleeing through debris as smoke filled the corridors of the hospital’s emergency ward.
The lawyers offered ghaibana namaz-e-janaza (funeral in absentia) of the victims of the blast besides staging rallies and demonstrations. One journalist broke down after seeing the bloodbath. The bomb went off right as the attacker moved toward the center of the crowd.
A contingent of Frontier Corps and police arrived and cordoned off the hospital following the blast, restricting access to the area.
A state of emergency was declared in hospitals across Quetta and several wounded were shifted to other hospitals. Some were flown to Karachi.
Baluchistan’s Home Minister Bugti said at least 10 people were killed and 30 wounded, though some media reported higher casualties.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the bombing Monday, urging law enforcement authorities to improve security in Quetta.
Lawyers across Pakistan denounced the killings in Quetta.
Lawyers have been frequently targeted in Balochistan.
A lawyer, Jahanzeb Alvi, was shot dead on August 3.
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They were waiting for the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, head of the Baluchistan Bar Association, which had been brought for an autopsy after Kasi was shot dead on his way to court. “It is particularly important to focus on security of citizens in Balochistan, where signs of some let up in violence over recent months had fuelled hopes, apparently prematurely, for a return to normalcy”, HRCP stated. There are several ethnic Baluch separatist groups operating in the resource-rich province, but al-Qaida and other militant groups also have a presence there. Islamabad routinely blames New Delhi for the unrest in Balochistan.
