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Pakistan in Mourning as Toll From Lahore Suicide Bombing Rises Pakistan in Mourning as Toll From Lahore Suicide Bombing Rises
(about 3 hours later)
LAHORE, Pakistan — Shock and grief enveloped Pakistan on Monday as the official death toll from a suicide attack in Lahore a day earlier rose to 69, with 341 people wounded. LAHORE, Pakistan — Riaz Masih and Nasreen Riasat had been married for four years, with their first child on the way in just a month, when they decided a slow walk in the park would be just the thing to enjoy a pleasant Sunday evening in Lahore.
The local news media put the number of people killed at 71. In a moment of calculated cruelty, they were thrust into the long roll call of families victimized by a jihadist suicide bomber on the Easter holiday, and among the vast accounting of terrorism’s toll on a country racked by extremism, again and again, for years.
Police investigators said a suicide bomber had detonated explosives in a vest during the evening rush hour on Sunday at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest public parks in this eastern city. “I can’t figure out what happened!” Mr. Masih said, his voice choking with grief as he lay in a bed at Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital on Monday. Ms. Riasat, his wife, was torn apart by the bomber’s blast, she and their soon-to-be-born child among the dozens killed. “Within minutes, I lost my wife. I couldn’t save her.”
Jamaat-e-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it had targeted Christians. Pakistani officials were skeptical about the claim, as most of those killed and wounded were Muslims. But because Sunday was Easter, a large number of Christian families had come to the park. Muhammad Kasim, a 25-year-old mechanic from out of town, was buying tickets to the children’s rides in the park for a group of family and friends when he felt the explosion. Running to the corner where his relatives were waiting, he found horror: an aunt killed, along with the excited 2-year-old daughter of a friend.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Lahore on Monday morning and visited Jinnah Hospital to show solidarity with the victims. He said he was deeply grieved and vowed to bring the culprits to justice. “Twelve of my relatives are wounded and under treatment,” he said, exhausted and still wearing his bloodstained shirt on Monday at the overwhelmed hospital. “I haven’t slept since yesterday, and I have no time to eat since I am the only one attending to my wounded relatives.”
Later, he met with senior government officials and pledged to eliminate terrorism. Shock and grief enveloped Pakistan on Monday as the official death toll from the attack in Lahore a day earlier rose to at least 72, with 341 people reported wounded by officials.
“Our resolve as a nation and as a government is getting stronger, and the cowardly enemy is trying for soft targets,” Mr. Sharif said during the meeting. “Our goal is not only to eliminate terror infrastructure but also the extremist mind-set, which is a threat to our way of life.” In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to fight terrorism “until it is rooted out from our society.” And the country’s powerful military, credited with greatly reducing militant attacks over the past two years, said that it was beginning a new round of operations in Punjab Province, Pakistan’s most populous region and the home to Lahore.
Mr. Sharif was planning to address the nation Monday evening, his press office said. Extremist groups have long made a campaign of attacking religious or ethnic minorities in Punjab. The attack on Sunday was claimed by Jamaat-e-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, which said it was targeting Christians who had gathered in the park for Easter. But Pakistani officials went to pains to say the toll was unselective, with Muslims and Christians among the dead and bereaved. Most of the victims were working-class, or poorer.
The military’s chief spokesman, Lt. Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa, said Monday that intelligence raids had been carried out in three cities in Punjab Province, of which Lahore is the capital, after the bomb attack, and a “number of terrorists and facilitators were arrested.” However, he gave no further details about the identities of those arrested or whether they were connected to Sunday’s bombing. The attack came just days after the National Assembly adopted a resolution to recognize Easter and the Hindu festivals of Holi and Diwali as public holidays, in what some here saw as a vital call for tolerance and others saw as offensive in a state officially built on Islam. That gesture, too, was marred by the bomber’s strike.
According to hospital sources, 252 people had been admitted to hospitals in the city by 10 a.m. on Monday, while 89 had been discharged. Of the wounded, 26 were in critical condition, officials said. Lahore is a magnet on spring weekends, with crowds drawn to the city’s famous parks and monuments, and its shopping centers. Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, where the bomber struck after pacing its crowded parking lot, is one of the largest and most popular public parks here.
An initial police report said that four young men had been approached by a police officer near the entrance to the park on Sunday evening. Three of them managed to escape, but the fourth ran through the gate and detonated his explosives. At least 10 kilograms of explosives was used in the bombing, the police said. Facing heavy criticism on Monday, officials acknowledged that while security measures had been intensified around mosques and, especially, churches on Sunday, little attention had been paid to the public parks.
Lahore, widely considered the cultural and political capital of Pakistan, appeared in mourning on Monday. Most of the commercial centers and shopping areas were closed, and security forces were on high alert throughout the city. A three-day Spring festival at Race Course Park in Lahore was cancelled because of security fears. On Monday, the city shut down around its pain. All public parks and the Lahore Zoo were closed, as were most of the shopping and commercial centers. A spring festival was canceled.
The police cordoned off the blast site for forensic investigation. On Monday afternoon, shoes and shreds of clothing were strewn about in the parking lot of the park. But at Lahore’s hospitals, distraught relatives were pouring in. And at the city’s cemeteries, the funerals began.
At city hospitals, chaos and anxiety prevailed as relatives kept pouring in to visit the wounded victims. In Youhanabad, a suburb with a large Christian population, funeral services were held for three teenagers. Four others from the neighborhood were wounded. Yousaf Samuel Benjamin was at a service to mourn a young family friend, a 17-year-old named Aaron, even as he and others awaited word about the teenager’s brother, Sherry Patras. “No one knows whether Sherry is still alive,” he said, “or whether he was also shattered into pieces.”
Rashida Bibi, 50, who was being treated for head injuries, said she and 32 members of her extended family had come to Lahore from Sahiwal, another city in Punjab, to enjoy Sunday. “We were at the swings. Suddenly there was a blast and I fell down. Children and women started screaming and soon rescue workers arrived. I cannot describe the terrible scenes,” Ms. Bibi said. Inayat Masih, a grieving father, demanded to know why his 17-year-old son, Wasif, and two of the son’s friends deserved death. “They were innocent!” Mr. Masih said. “I can only pray that they find peace wherever they are now.”
Meanwhile, at least 2,000 protesters continued a sit-in outside the Parliament in the national capital, Islamabad. Rashida Bibi, 50, who was being treated for head injuries, said she and 32 members of her extended family had come to Lahore from Sahiwal, another city in Punjab, to enjoy their Sunday. “We were at the swings,” she said. “Suddenly there was a blast and I fell down. I cannot describe the terrible scenes.”
The protesters had rampaged through the city on Sunday after holding a rally in neighboring Rawalpindi to express support for Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a former police guard who was executed on Feb. 29 for the 2011 killing of a governor, Salmaan Taseer. Mr. Taseer had called for changes in the country’s blasphemy laws, saying they were being used to persecute religious minorities. Naveed Ahmed, 33, a power loom worker from Faisalabad, said two of his nephews were badly wounded in the explosion. “My 9-year-old nephew, Owais, was so close to the blast that the explosive material severely bruised his body, and doctors had to operate on his lower abdomen and throat,” Mr. Ahmed said.
To hard-line Islamists and religious parties, any change to the blasphemy laws is unacceptable, and they have campaigned violently against such proposals, portraying Mr. Qadri as a hero A cousin, Adnan, 15, had both legs fractured. Mr. Ahmed said he was shocked to see some men begin stealing even as people lay hurt and screaming for help. “I am deeply saddened and unable to understand how even after such a tragedy — how could some people start stealing?” he said. Owais, who was still conscious after the blast, was trying to call his mother when a thief snatched his phone away.
On Monday, the protesters presented their demands to the government. They included declaring Mr. Qadri an official martyr, imposition of Sharia law in Pakistan and immediate execution of all those convicted of blasphemy. Others recounted how rescue workers struggled to save the wounded at a scene of utter chaos, with the power cut and victims writhing and screaming.
District officials in Islamabad and leaders of the protesters were in negotiations on Monday afternoon to end the sit-in. However, political analysts said they expected a protracted standoff, as the government was unlikely to accede to the demands. One of the rescuers, Mohammad Ahmad, remained deeply shaken on Monday.
Troops had been deployed in Islamabad to secure the Parliament and other important buildings, including the headquarters of the Supreme Court and a large complex of apartment blocks for Parliament members. “It was very difficult,” he said. “We felt as if we were standing on a pool of blood and strewn body parts. “The giant skywheel at the park had stopped working and people were stuck. Their screams are still haunting me.”
Mobile phone service in some parts of the capital was suspended by the authorities. On Monday afternoon, shoes and shreds of clothing were still strewn about in the parking lot, framed behind a police cordon.
The attack in Lahore, which is also Mr. Sahrif’s political stronghold, has drawn new attention to the government’s efforts to stem terror in the country and has renewed calls for action against militant groups in Punjab.
Previously, Mr. Sharif and his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, had resisted calls for an army operation in the province.
Senior police officials had also refused to consider military action, saying that the provincial police are capable of handling the militants.
Critics have faulted the government’s handling of protests in the wake of Mr. Qadri’s execution. Omar R. Quraishi, a senior journalist based in the port city of Karachi, said the government’s policy of letting pro-Qadri supporters vent their fury seemed to have backfired.
“Calling in the army to re-establish peace in Islamabad is a sign of the government’s inability to govern effectively,” Mr. Quraishi said.