Hang them, demand victims’ relatives

– Anger was growing in Pakistan yesterday 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 perpetrators.

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 police officer killed in the blast, said.

“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 to please uproot these terrorists fully so our country can progress,” he said.

The powerful blast on 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.

Yesterday, 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 Taliban, was carried out by a suicide bomber. – AFP