A US State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said that Pakistan has said that they will go after all terrorists regardless of affiliation.
Advertisement
A bomb has exploded at a hospital in the city of Quetta in south-west Pakistan, killing at least 30 people. Most of the dead and injured are lawyers, and include police officials and journalists as well, police and eye witnesses were quoted as saying in reports. Neither claim could be independently verified. His comments about the RAW link came even before the police could say who was responsible for the horrific attack.
The United States has said it will stand with Pakistan in its fight against terrorism, and strongly condemned the bomb blast in Quetta that killed dozens of people.
Meanwhile, Mr Ali Zafar, the head of the country’s main association of lawyers, condemned the blast as “an attack on justice”.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association has announced a week-long mourning over the fatal assault. Over 100 others were injured when a suicide bomber detonated himself inside the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital.
And by attacking the entrance to a hospital emergency room those responsible took their rightful place on the lowest rung of humanity’s ladder. Jamaat-ur-Ahrar also claimed responsibility for that atrocity.
Almost 100 lawyers had come to the hospital in the heart of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, after the body of their colleague, Bilal, was brought there. “There are many wounded, so the death toll could rise”, said Rehmat Saleh Baloch, the provincial health minister. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a high-level security meeting in Quetta yesterday and ordered all state security institutions to respond with full might to eliminate terrorists.
“Lawyers will not just protest this attack, but also prepare a long-term plan of action”.
Sharif added that “no one will be allowed to disturb the peace”, which “countless sacrifices” by the “security forces, police and the people of Baluchistan” have worked so hard to restore.
In the wake of the tragedy, lawyers from other areas of Pakistan are going on strike, demanding the government do more to protect them.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Advertisement
Bugti said the impact of the explosion was so strong that scores of vehicles and motorbikes that were around the hospital were destroyed. “We have yet to determine the nature of the blast, but it appears likely the explosion targeted lawyers who were protesting the killing of a local leader at the time”, said Haq.
