Bomber kills 56 in Lahore as Christians celebrate Easter
Print Edition
AT least 56 people were killed and more than 200 injured when an apparent suicide bomb ripped through the parking lot of a crowded park in the Pakistani city of Lahore where Christians were celebrating Easter Sunday.
Dozens of ambulances were seen racing to the park, situated near the center of the city of around 8 million, with many women and children among the dead and wounded.
“The toll has risen to 56. The rescue operation is continuing,” Lahore top administration official Muhammad Usman told reporters.
The army had been called in, he said, and soldiers were at the scene helping with rescue operations and security.
Senior police official Haider Ashraf said the blast appeared to be a suicide attack, adding that ball bearings were found at the crowded park.
A medical superintendent at Jinnah Hospital, who gave his name as Dr Ashraf, said more than 40 dead bodies had arrived at the hospital.
“The number of injured stands at more than 200 people, most of them are in critical condition,” he said. “I fear the death toll will rise.”
He described a nightmarish scene at the hospital, with staff treating casualties on floors and in corridors.
Javed Ali, a 35-year-old resident who lives opposite park, said the force of the blast had shattered his home’s windows. “Everything was shaking, there were cries and dust everywhere.
“After 10 minutes I went outside. There was human flesh on the walls of our house. People were crying, I could hear ambulances.” He added: “It was overcrowded because of Easter, there were a lot of Christians there. It was so crowded I told my family not to go.”
Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency since 2004, with groups such as the Pakistani Taliban routinely carrying out attacks.
However, Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital that lies on the country’s eastern border with India, has been relatively peaceful in recent years.
Nationwide, overall levels of militant violence have fallen since the army began a major offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds in the country’s northwest.
Last year saw the lowest number of civilian and security forces casualties since 2007, the year the umbrella Pakistani Taliban group was formed.
At least 16 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded when a bomb blew up in a bus in Peshawar on March 16.
Yesterday’s blast saw the highest number of casualties since a suicide bomber killed 55 people at the main Pakistan-India border crossing at Wagah in an attack claimed by the Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Taliban.
It also came as police in the capital Islamabad clashed with thousands of supporters of an Islamist assassin, almost a month after he was hanged for killing a provincial governor for alleged blasphemy.
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