LAHORE:
At least seven people were killed and over dozen injured in a remote control bomb blast at the shrine of Hazrat Baba Ghulam Farid Ganjshakar in district Pakpattan early on Monday, private television channels reported.
Quoting eyewitnesses and local security personnel, regional police officer of Sahiwal told Geo News channel that two men riding a motorbike left a milk container near the main gate of the shrine, which then exploded in a huge fireball.
The local officials said that the blast occurred after the morning prayers at eastern gate of the shrine, which has been closed soon after the incident. While all injured were taken to the District Headquarters Hospital.
Another Aaj News channel quoted police officials as saying that the explosive material was planted in a motorbike parked outside the shrine. The channel reported that three women were included in the dead persons.
After the incident, the government forces cordoned off the area. The rescue work was over, and the security operatives now investigating the incident, senior police official Mohammad Kashif told reporters.
It is to be noted that a suicide blast at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi almost two weeks ago had killed 10 people, while two blasts targeting the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore in July had killed more than 40 devotees.
The Dawn News channel reported that two unidentified men dressed in shalwar kameez came on the motorcycle and parked it near the gate minutes before the blast. The explosive device was remote-controlled. Baba Farid was a 12th-century sufi preacher and saint of the Chishti Order.
At least eight injured people were said to be in critical condition. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest attack but Taliban militants have in the past attacked Sufi shrines. Ruet-i-Hilal Committee chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman said that the government had failed to provide adequate security to shrines.
CONDEMNATION
President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other political and religious leaders have condemned attack on the shrine. They termed the attacks on shrines a conspiracy create gulf among various schools of thought in the country.
Former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Altaf Hussain, ANP leader Asfandyar Wali, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Sindh Governor Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad, and others condemned the bomb attack at the shrine.
Bomb blast near Baba Farid’s shrine in Pakpattan
