Markets remain shut as Pakistan mourns victims of Lahore blast
lahore — Pakistanis on Tuesday mourned the victims of a Talebanclaimed suicide bomb attack in Lahore, as the death toll rose to 15 and the city’s residents railed at the government for failing to protect them.
Markets and businesses were closed across much of the Punjab province, police said.
Flags at government buildings flew at half-staff, and lawyers boycotted court proceedings a day after the attack in the provincial capital, Lahore, said police officer Nazar Hayat.
The chief minister of Punjab province Shahbaz Sharif declared a day of mourning after Monday’s blast, believed to be targeting police managing a protest at rush hour on Mall Road, one of Lahore’s main arteries.
At least 15 people were killed, emergency official Ahmad Raza said, including six police officers, while up to 87 were injured. Official funerals were held on Tuesday for some of the victims.
The toll could have been much higher, Raza said, but for two vehicles — a TV news van and a minivan belonging to the protesters — which absorbed much of the impact of the blast.
The Pakistani Taleban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the assault, which came three days after it announced it would carry out a series of attacks on government installations around the country.
The attack underscored the challenges faced by Pakistan in its push to stamp out militancy, even though security dramatically improved in 2015 and 2016.
Homegrown groups like the outlawed umbrella Tehreek-i-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) retain the ability to carry out spectacular attacks, despite a military-led crackdown on extremism.
Lahore residents vented their fury at the militants and the government at the blast site early on Tuesday.
“They (the militants) have no link with Islam nor do they believe in any religion, the only thing they know is killing people, this is utterly an act of terrorism,” Tariq Saleem said.
Nadeem Akhter called on the government to do more to bring the situation under control. “Our children and people are being killed in these attacks,” he said.
Both British High Commissioner to Pakistan Thomas Drew and US ambassador David Hale branded the attack “cowardly” in separate statements, expressing support for the victims, while the EU said it was “shocked and saddened” by the incident.
Lahore, the country’s cultural capital, suffered one of Pakistan’s deadliest attacks in 2016 — a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar suicide bomb in a park last year on day Easter that killed more than 70 including many children. But such incidents have been rare in the city in recent years. —