Death toll in suicide bombing rises as families hold funerals

Khar (AP)

The death toll from a massive suicide bombing that targeted an election rally for a pro-Taliban cleric rose to 54 on Monday as Pakistan held funerals and the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people. Police said their initial investigation suggested that the Islamic State (IS) group’s regional affiliate could be responsible.

The victims were attending a rally organised by the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan’s Taliban government, escaped at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014 when bombings damaged his car at rallies.

Victims of the bombing were buried in Bajur.

As condolences continued to pour in from across the country, dozens of people who received minor injuries were discharged from hospital while the critically wounded were taken to the provincial capital of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll continued to rise as critically wounded people died in hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said.

Police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, Bajur’s largest town. Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, said police were “investigating this attack in all aspects.”

At least 1,000 people were gathered under a large tent Sunday as their party prepared for parliamentary elections, expected in October or November.

DEAFENING SOUND

“People were chanting God is Great on the arrival of senior leaders when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb,” said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who said he was standing outside the tent.

Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later, ambulances started arriving and taking the wounded away.

Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Rehman’s party said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve”.

Islamist groups have long had a presence in Bajur. The district was formerly a base for Al Qaeda and a stronghold of the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The army declared the district clear of the group in 2016 following a series of offensives.

The IS regional affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, is based in neighbouring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Shaukat Abbas, a senior police officer, said that police have made progress in their investigation but did not provide details.

Pakistani security analyst Mahmood Shah told The Associated Press that breakaway factions of the TTP could also be behind the attack. He said some TTP members have been known to disobey their top leadership to carry out attacks as have breakaway factions of the group.

Shah said such factions could have perpetrated the attack to cause “confusion, instability and unrest ahead of the elections”.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve Pakistan’s parliament in August.