The Islamic State group today claimed it was behind a suicide bombing.”A martyrdom bomber of the Islamic State detonates his explosive belt on a group of personnel belonging to the Ministry of Justice and the Pakistani Police in the city of Quetta”, the IS-linked Amaq news agency said.
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The powerful blast ripped through the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital when almost 100 lawyers had gathered to collect the body of a prominent lawyer shot dead hours earlier in the city.
ARY News said the dead included at least 25 lawyers.
Two terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility for the bombing: the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group – a Pakistani group associated with the Taliban – and the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State group, according to The Washington Post.
“The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar (TTP-JA) takes responsibility for this attack, and pledges to continue carrying out such attacks”, said spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a statement.
Another witness, lawyer Abdul Latif, said he had just arrived at the hospital to express his grief over Kasi’s killing, and was horrified to “see the bodies of dozens of other lawyers” lying in pools of blood on the floor.
The remains of the suicide attacker have been found at the scene, senior police officer Zahoor Ahmed Afridi added. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the victims in the hospital.
People comfort each other following a bomb blast Monday in Quetta, Pakistan.
“Baluchistan has witnessed a number of terrorist attacks in the last 12 years, most of which targeted the Shiite community of the province”.
The lawyers were at the hospital to take the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the Balochistan Bar Association who was killed earlier in the city, Dawn reported.
A senior police official said Kasi was shot and killed by gunmen as he was on his way to his office.
Balochistan is home to a low-level insurgency by Baloch separatists.
France s President Francois Hollande denounced the “abominable act”, while the European Union said there was “no justification for such acts of terrorism”. The suicide bomber targeted that group of lawyers.
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“The death toll has risen to 70 and there are 112 injured”, the head of the provincial health department, Dr Masood Nausherwani, told reporters Monday.
