Hang attack masterminds: victims

Anger grows as 26 killed by suicide bombing buried

LAHORE, Pakistan, July 25, (Agencies): Anger was growing in Pakistan Tuesday as the grief-stricken relatives of 26 people killed by a suicide bomber in Lahore a day earlier buried their loved ones and demanded the government publicly hang the masterminds of the attack.

Families and residents in the bustling eastern city demanded action as they attended funeral prayers, and as the chief minister of Punjab province Shahbaz Sharif — brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — visited survivors in hospital.

“We demand from the Government of Pakistan that those who are involved in this incident and those who are the facilitators should be hanged in public,” Hafiz Naseer ul Din, uncle of a policeman killed in the blast, told AFP.

“We came here in great grief,” added Shaikh Rizwan, a local resident who attended the funeral prayers for some of the victims.

“Twenty-six people were martyred here yesterday, I request my government that please uproot these terrorists fully so our country can progress,” he said. The powerful blast Monday hit a busy vegetable market on a bustling main road in the southern part of Lahore, blowing out the windows in nearby buildings.

Many of those killed in the attack were police who were clearing shopping stalls that had illegally encroached on to the road.

On Tuesday distraught relatives carried the coffins of two policemen, brothers who were killed in the attack, to a petrol pump which had been turned into a makeshift prayer ground.

Floral wreaths from local police chiefs were placed on the wooden coffins as family members wept.

Police have said their initial investigations show the attack, claimed by the Pakistani Taleban, was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Forensic experts were collecting evidence from the site of the blast Tuesday, an AFP video reporter saw.

Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan’s more than decade-long war on extremism, but they have been less frequent in recent years. The last major blast in the city was in March last year, when 75 were killed and hundreds injured in a bomb targeting Christians celebrating Easter Sunday in a park.

But the country was also hit by a wave of attacks in February this year, including a bomb that killed 14 people in Lahore.

Census

In April a further seven were killed in an attack in the city targeting a team that was carrying out the country’s long overdue census.

After years of spiralling insecurity, the powerful army launched a crackdown on militancy in the wake of a brutal attack on a school in late 2014.

More than 150 people, most of them children, died in the Taleban-led assault in the northwestern city of Peshawar — the country’s deadliest ever single attack.

It shook a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities and prompted the military to step up operations in the tribal areas, where militants had previously operated with impunity.

The country has seen a dramatic improvement in security since, though groups such as the Pakistani Taleban retain the ability to carry out spectacular attacks.

Earlier, rana Sanaullah, the home minister of eastern Punjab province of which Lahore is the capital, said antistate elements who want to see instability in the country were behind the attack. “No matter what name they use, these terrorists are one but they cannot demoralize the Pakistani nation,” said Sanaullah.

Malik Mohammad Ahmed, a spokesman for the Punjab government, said the blast occurred near the secretariat of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif but that he was not in the office oat the time.

Sharif in a statement condemned the attack and called for the best possible medical service for the survivors.

The UN Security Council condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” in the strongest terms and underlined the obligation of all countries to help Pakistan bring those responsible to justice. Members reiterated that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned attack in Lahore and called for those responsible to be brought to justice, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“He supports the efforts of the government of Pakistan to fight terrorism and violent extremism with full respect for international human rights norms and obligations,” Haq said.

Lahore has faced scores of terror attacks in recent years. A suicide bombing earlier this year killed 16 police on a busy road while another killed over 70 people during Easter last year.

Elsewhere in Pakistan Monday, gunmen riding on a motorcycle in Karachi opened fire on traffic police officers, killing one and critically wounding another, said Rao Anwar, a senior counterterrorism police officer.