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Seven killed in Pak as blast hits Punjab Home Minister’s office

Speaking in Lahore,
the provincial capital, Mushtaq Sukhera, the inspector general
of the Punjab police, said that body parts of the suicide bomber had been recovered from the site.

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The United States on Monday offered assistance to Pakistan authorities investigating the killing of Shuja Khanzada, home minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, in a suicide bomb attack while a First Information Report (FIR) was filed in Sunday’s deadly blast.

Inter-Services Public Relations, the mouthpiece of Pakistani army said that the military has provided teams for carrying out rescue operation and also two helicopters for airlifting the seriously injured people to hospitals in Rawalpindi.

After Ishaq’s death, Khanzada, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were put on high alert.

The explosion caused the roof of the office to collapse as the minister among 50 people were trapped under the rubble. The rescue operation has not been completed at yet.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has been behind some of the most violent attacks in recent years.

According to ISPR, the army chief said that such dastardly coward attempts could not dent our national resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism. The suicide bomber blew himself up at the home of Khanzada, 71, who had been holding a meeting with locals.

IG Police further said the involvement of some banned organization in attack on Shuja Khanzada cannot be rejected.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 190 million people, is plagued by a Taliban insurgency, criminal gangs and sectarian violence.

Last month, he announced that Malik Ishaq, who led the al-Qaida-linked Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had been killed in a police shootout.

Pakistan’s offensive against militants has intensified after Taliban gunmen murdered more than 130 children at a school in the northwest of the country in December 2014. He had earlier received threats from Al-Qaeda and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

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The killing of the LeJ leader was described by officials as a major blow to religiously-motivated militant groups in southern belt of Punjab.

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