10 KILLED IN PAKISTAN BLAST
Local Taliban claims attack on security forces at popular Sufi shrine
ASUICIDE blast at one of Pakistan’s oldest and most popular Sufi shrines killed at least 10 people and wounded 24 in the eastern city here yesterday, police said, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
The blast, which a faction of the militant group claimed by email, occurred near the entrance gate for female visitors to the 11thcentury Data Darbar shrine, one of the largest Sufi shrines in South Asia, as the country marks Ramadan.
Husks of vehicles littered the pavement near the shrine as first responders rushed to the scene while armed security forces fanned out in the area.
The emergency room at the Mayo Hospital here was crowded with the wounded, and people searching for loved ones.
Among them was Azra Bibi, whose son Muhammad Shahid cares for visitors’ shoes, which must be removed before entering. He has been missing since the blast, she said.
“They are not Muslims,” she said, referring to the attackers.
“They even targeted worshippers.”
The shrine has long been home to colourful Sufi festivals and a prime destination for the country’s myriad Muslim sects.
It has been targeted previously, in a 2010 suicide attack which killed more than 40 people.
Since then, the area has been increasingly hemmed in by heavy security, with visitors forced to pass through several layers of screening before they can enter the complex.
Sufi worshippers, who follow a mystical strain of Islam, have frequently been the target of bloody attacks in Pakistan by militants, including the Islamic State group, who consider Sufi beliefs and rituals at the graves of Muslim saints as heresy.
Senior police official Muhammad Ashfaq said security personnel at the shrine were targeted.
Three police officials, two security guards and five civilians, including a child, were among the dead, Punjab province chief minister Usman Buzdar said.
Pakistan’s push against extremism was stepped up after the country’s deadliest ever attack, an assault on a school in Peshawar in 2014 that left more than 150 dead — mostly children.
An attack here in March last year left nine people dead, while a major blast targeting Christians celebrating Easter in a park in 2016 killed more than 70 people.
The Data Darbar complex contains the shrine of Saint Syed Ali Osman Al-Hajvery, popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh.
Originally from Afghanistan, he was one of the most popular Sufi preachers on the subcontinent.