PESHAWAR: At least 43 people were killed while 80 others were injured on Sunday when a suicide blast targeted a political party’s rally in northwestern Pakistan, police and rescue officials confirmed, fearing a rise in the death toll.
The blast took place during a public rally organized by the right-wing Pakistani political party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl) in Bajaur’s Khar town, Bajaur Police spokesperson Muhammad Israr said.
“The initial investigation revealed that the blast was apparently a suicide attack,” Israr told Arab News.
Meanwhile, District Health Office Faisal Karim told Arab News 43 bodies have been received by various hospitals from the blast while 80 others had been reported wounded in the attack.
Some of the critically wounded were referred to the District Headquarters Hospital in Timergara while others were referred to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, Rescue 1122 spokesperson Bilal Faizi said.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a strong condemnation of the blast, vowing to punish those found responsible for the attack.
“Attack on political parties makes it clear that the enemy is against the democratic system in Pakistan, which will not be allowed,” Sharif wrote on Twitter. “Those responsible will be identified and handed strict punishments.”
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman urged expressed deep shock and regret over the attack.
“Maulana Fazlur Rehman demands the prime minister and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister hold an inquiry into the regretful incident,” a statement from the party said on Twitter.
The JUI-F urged the party’s supporters to remain calm in the wake of the attack and called on provincial and federal authorities to provide the best medical care to the injured.
President Dr. Arif Alvi also condemned the attack.
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa “must not be allowed to bleed again.”
Khan also spoke out against the attack, saying that the rise in terror attacks across the province calls for an urgent need to “reconsider our priorities.”
“Those in power must shift their focus from political engineering to directing State’s efforts’ & resources toward countering terrorism,” he wrote on Twitter.
Tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan were long a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants who have carried out some of the deadliest attacks against the country’s security forces.
Militancy in the district declined following the Pakistan Army’s operations there, but with the return of the Afghan Taliban to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021, the South Asian country has seen an uptick in violence in border areas, particularly after a fragile truce between the TTP and the state broke down in November last year.
The suicide bombing took place hours before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng landed in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, where he will participate in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
