Over 70 dead in ISIS suicide attack on Sufi shrine in Pak
KARACHI: More than 70 people were killed and nearly 150 injured on Thursday night when a suicide bomber from the group Islamic State (ISIS) blew himself up inside the crowded shrine of the revered Sufi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan town, 200km northeast of Karachi, in the latest in a series of deadly blasts this week in Pakistan.
News agencies confirmed at least 72 deaths while, earlier, SHO Rasool Baksh told reporters that around 100 people were killed.
Inspector general of police, Sindh, AD Khawaja confirmed to media that the cops had counted 70 bodies.
The bomber entered the shrine through its Golden Gate and blew himself up near the site where a dance ritual of dance was taking place. He first threw a grenade, to cause panic, and then blew himself up, police said.
Suicide bombing hits devotees gathered at Sehwan’s Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine
At least 72 people were killed and scores of others injured when a suspected suicide attacker blew himself up at a Sufi shrine in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Thursday, the latest in a string of terrorist attacks in the country this week.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing, the terror group’s news agency Amaq reported. The explosion occurred at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan town where a large number of people had gathered for “dhamaal” (a Sufi ritual), Pakistani media reported.
Large crowds frequent the famed shrine, which has the mausoleum of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, on Thursdays. The injured have been shifted to nearby hospitals, where several of them are stated to be in a critical condition, staterun Radio Pakistan reported.
Pakistan Armed Forces spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor tweeted that army and Rangers have been deployed to the site for medical support.
Pakistan Air Force’s C-130 planes will lift the injured from Nawab Shah airport and Navy helicopters will take victims from Sehwan and surroundings, he said in the tweet.
Recent terrorist attacks are being carried out “on directions from hostile powers and from sanctuaries in Afghanistan. We shall defend and respond,” he said. Police official Muhammad Rashid said the 13 century shrine was the target of the attack.
This was the fourth major terrorist strike in the country in five days. On Wednesday, seven people were killed when suicide bombers targeted a van carrying judges in Peshawar and a government compound in the restive Mohmand region. Those attacks came two days after a suicide bombing in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, killed 13 people and injured dozens.
The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Taliban, claimed the attacks in Mohmand agency and Lahore while the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed the attack in Peshawar.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa have vowed to fight the new wave of terrorism, which broke a relative lull across the country in recent months. The manner in which the attacks are taking place suggests that the country’s fight against terrorism is not yielding results