At least 54 people were killed on Monday when a powerful blast hit a hospital in Quetta in Pakistan when dozens of lawyers were entering it with the body of lawyer killed earlier, officials said.
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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.
A spokesman for Jamaatul Ahara, a faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said that his faction “accepts responsibility” for the attack and vowed more attacks “until the imposition of an Islamic system in Pakistan”. Rallies are planned across the country Tuesday, the broadcaster added.
Editor’s note: Correction – A previous version of this story published on August 8, 2016, stated that the Pakistan Taliban, rather than a splinter group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
People grieve after the suicide bomb attack at Quetta’s civil hospital.
A suicide attack at a hospital in Pakistan that killed at least 70 people on Monday has been condemned as an “inhuman act” by the Catholic Church in the country.
The Balochistan Bar Council announced three-day mourning across the province. Kasi was among one of the most outspoken lawyers in the province and had campaigned for improvements in the legal community.
“Terrorists do not differentiate between doctors and engineers and lawyers or policemen”. “People are scared and they ask for how long the violence will continue”, he said.
There’s one guaranteed way for terrorists to threaten efforts to promote a civil, democratic society: Start wiping out the lawyers. But this changed in the wake of a series of brutal attacks against civilians, such as an attack on a school in Peshawar that killed 156 people in 2014.
By March 2015, however, the group was again swearing loyalty to the main Pakistani Taliban umbrella leadership. Numerous lawyers killed were pursuing cases involving human rights violations. It would comprise experts from civil and military departments.
Legendary Pakistan cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan also expressed his dismay at the attack on a hospital.
Demonstrations were held in several other major cities, with protesters calling on the government to do more to protect lawyers, who are seen by some militants as an extension of the state and therefore legitimate targets.
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Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri said RAW was behind the blast and the enemies would be chased out and arrested.
