Grief and outrage at news of bombing attack in Pakistan

It was a sombre and sorrowful Easter Sunday for many British Columbians following a deadly bombing at a public park in Lahore, Pakistan, that killed at least 65 people, mostly women and children.

B.C.’s Pakistani-Canadians reacted with grief and outrage over the suicide bomb attack, claimed by a Pakistani Taliban faction, which also injured more than 300.

“We have received with great shock (the) terrible news of the terrorist attack in Lahore on Easter Day,” said a statement by Naveed Waraich, general secretary of the Surreybased Pakistani-Canadian Cultural Association of B.C. “We strongly condemned this act of terrorism and brutal victimization of innocent people in Pakistan as this is not what Islam has taught us as a religion of peace and harmony.”

Waraich said news of the bombing, which targeted Christians in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, trickled down to the local community early Sunday morning and he started getting phone calls from concerned members.

“The fact this happened on Easter Sunday — that day is very important,” he said.

An estimated 28,000 Canadians of Pakistani heritage live in the Lower Mainland, including many Christians, noted Waraich. But the tragedy goes beyond religion, he stressed. “All the Pakistani community is getting under one umbrella,” he said. “Pakistani-Muslims are very much concerned. We do not share that ideology, 99.99 per cent of people are not like that.”

A vigil will be held at the Fiji Islamic Centre in Surrey on Monday to pray for the victims.

Haroon Khan, president of the Pakistan Canada Association, expressed condolences to Pakistan and the Christian community, and condemned the “cruelly-timed bombing” at the park.

A Canadian Muslim group, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, also condemned the attack, which president Lal Khan Malik described as a “gruesome and senseless act of violence.”

In a statement, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said he was “deeply saddened” to hear of the tragedy.