Pakistani local journalists react over the body of a news cameraman after a bomb explosion at a government hospital premises in Quetta on August 8, 2016 At least 35 people were killed and dozens more wounded after a blast at a major hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta, an AFP reporter and officials said, with fears the toll could rise.
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The bomb exploded as lawyers brought Balochistan Bar Association’s President Bilal Kasi, who was gunned down to the hospital, according to police and rescue officials.
The mourners were entering the emergency department of the hospital, accompanying Kasi’s body, when the bomb went off, Faridullah, a journalist who was at the scene, told Reuters. A Pakistani news channel reported that one of its cameramen was also killed in the blast.
The slain lawyer Bilal Kasi was on his way to office when unknown gunmen opened fire on his vehicle in Manno Jan Road of Quetta.
Almost 100 lawyers had come to the hospital in the heart of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, after the body of their colleague, prominent attorney Bilal Kasi was brought there. Suicide bombers also attacked lawyers and journalists at the hospital, said Ihsan, who vowed that such attacks would continue.
No group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, the AP reports.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which struck at the gates of the building housing the emergency ward, on the hospital grounds.
Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri had claimed that the blast was a suicide attack and that Indian intelligence agency RAW was behind terrorist activities in Balochistan.
Lawyer Abdul Latif says he arrived at the hospital to express his grief after hearing that Kasi had been shot and killed.
At least 53 people were killed in a suicide bombing inside the Civil Hospital on Monday, police said.
Television footage showed scenes of chaos at the hospital in Quetta, with panicked people fleeing through debris as smoke filled the hospital corridors. Numerous dead were in black suits and ties – the lawyers’ uniform.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the blast in Quetta and expressed his “deep grief and anguish over the loss of precious human lives” in the attack, in which several senior lawyers were also killed.
The prime minister said in a statement that he has directed authorities to “maintain utmost vigilance” and that the country has boosted security for members in the legal fraternity as well as for the rest of society.
Vaccination campaigns are often targeted by radical Muslim militants, who see them as conspiracies by the West.
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Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has oil and gas resources but is afflicted by militancy, sectarian violence and a separatist insurgency.
