On Monday, a suicide bomber killed at least 70 people in the southwestern city of Quetta and more than 100 wounded in attack, people reached for mourners at city hospital. At least 70 people were killed in the blast, and dozens more were injured. Afridi said most of the dead were lawyers who had gathered after Kasi’s body was brought to the hospital. “No one attacks hospitals in war, the terrorists didn’t even spare them”, he said, adding that under a planned conspiracy at first President of Balochistan Bar Association was gunned down after which a suicide attack was launched on the mourners. A Pakistani news channel reported that one of its cameramen was also killed in the blast.
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The attack was carried out yesterday at the entrance of the emergency department of a government-run hospital, while colleagues of lawyer Bilal Anwar Kasi were mourning his death.
Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of Pakistan’s Tehreek-i Taliban (TTP) – also known as the Pakistan Taliban – has claimed responsibility for both the hospital blast and Kasi’s death, according to Ihsanullah Ihsan, a spokesman for the faction.
But in what was likely an opportunistic statement, the Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the Quetta attack later on Monday, though there have been instances of competing claims in previous attacks in Pakistan.
He had strongly condemned the recent murders – including those of fellow lawyers – in Quetta in recent weeks, and had announced a two-day boycott of court sessions in protest at the killing of a colleague last week.
Victims injured in Monday’s suicide bombing are treated at a hospital in Quetta. It remains unclear which group was responsible for the attack.
Together with the Pakistan Bar Association, the SCBA has called the three-day strike across the legal profession to demand that the Pakistani government take action to ensure the security of lawyers and judges across the county. Sharif asked the local authorities to maintain utmost vigilance and beef up security in Quetta.
Senior police official Zahoor Ahmed says also that dozens have been wounded in the explosion. The Pakistan Army spokesman said in a tweet that the attack was “specially targeting China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an ambitious United States dollars 46 billion project to build a corridor that will also pass through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir”.
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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif talks to a survivor of a bombing with Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, right, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.
