ISLAMABAD – A double suicide bomb attack outside the shrine of the 13th century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar, in Dera Ghazi Khan district killed 42 people on Sunday. Hundreds of people had gathered at the shrine for a ceremony when the attacks took place.
“We have recovered 41 bodies so far,” said police officer Zahid Hussain Shah, adding that more than 70 people were wounded. “Both were suicide attackers, they came on foot and blew themselves up when police on duty stopped them,” he said. Many of those wounded in the attacks were in a serious condition, he said, and the injured had been taken to the Dera Ghazi Khan hospital for treatment.
Regional police chief Ahmed Mubarak confirmed that two suicide bombers tried to enter the shrine but failed and blew themselves up. Regional Police Officer (RPO) Ahmad Mubarak said two of the attackers’ accomplices were arrested by rescue officials and law enforcement agencies as they tried to detonate their explosive vests. They were handed over to investigation agencies, which moved them to an undisclosed location for interrogation.
Shah said the detainees included a suspected suicide bomber identified as Fida Hussain, a 15- to 16-year-old Afghan refugee from Pakistan’s tribal area, he said. “These were suicide bombings and we arrested an attacker who could not completely detonate the explosives on his body. He was wounded,” Zahid said. A private TV channel quoted Fida as saying that he had failed this time but would carry out a similar attack whenever he got the chance.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani condemned the blasts, saying that such cowardly acts of terror clearly demonstrate that the culprits involved neither have any faith nor any belief in human values. “Such violent acts only seem to be conspiracy to divide the society and create fear,” a statement from Gilani’s office said. A police official, requesting anonymity, said the shrine had received threats from unidentified militants.
Sufis, practitioners of the mystical, esoteric dimension of Islam, have increasingly been the target of bloody attacks by militants in Pakistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the twin suicide attacks. “Our men carried out these attacks and we will carry out more in retaliation for government operations against our people in the northwest,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Taliban spokesman, said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“I was just a few yards away from the place where the blast happened,” said witness Faisal Iqbal. “People started running outside the shrine. Women and children were crying and screaming. It was like hell,” he added. Heads and body parts of the bombers were also recovered from the blast site. The US Embassy condemned the attacks and said no one was safe from the fanatic hatred of terrorists.
