PESHAWAR: The death toll from Sunday’s suicide blast in the northwestern Pakistani district of Bajaur has risen to 45, while 90 people were wounded in its wake, officials told Arab News on Monday. 

Hundreds of supporters of the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) were meeting in Bajaur in a hall close to a market outside the district headquarters, where organizers added tents because so many supporters showed up, and party volunteers with batons were helping control the crowd. Officials were announcing the arrival of Abdul Rasheed, a leader of the JUI-F party, when the bomb went off in one of Pakistan’s bloodiest attacks in recent years. 

Provincial police said in a statement that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives vest close to the stage where several senior leaders of the party were sitting. It said initial investigations suggested the Islamic State (Daesh) group — which operates in Afghanistan and is an enemy of the Afghan Taliban — could be behind the attack, and officers were still investigating. 

“The death toll has reached 45,” Dr. Faisal Karim, the Bajaur district health officer (DHO), told Arab News on Monday. 

Muhammad Israr, a spokesperson for the Bajaur police, said the bomb attack injured 90 others. “It was a suicide attack and more than 7kg explosive material was used [in it],” he added. 

A police report of the incident was registered at the Malakand counter-terrorism department (CTD) police station as Bajaur doesn’t have a CTD police station where such cases are registered, according to Israr. 

The Bajur district near the Afghan border was once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government — before the Pakistani army drove the militants out of the tribal districts in successive operations that began in late 2000s. 

The Pakistani Taliban condemned the attack, while the Afghan Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said on Twitter that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”

The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where he was to 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. 

In recent months, China has helped Pakistan avoid a default on sovereign payments. However, some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere. 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Arif Alvi condemned the attack and asked officials to provide all possible assistance to the wounded and the bereaved families. PM Sharif later telephoned JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and conveyed his condolences to him, assuring that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished.