At least 62 people were killed and 102 were injured on Saturday evening in a bombing at the shrine of Shah Norani in Khuzdar district of Balochistan.
Earlier, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti confirmed, “52 people have died and dozens injured in the incident.”
Bugti also hinted towards foreign involvement in the attack. It was not confirmed whether the bombing was a suicide attack or a remote detonation.
What we know so far
- Blast within the premises of the shrine
- At least 52 killed, 102 people injured
- Difficulty in reaching site of incident due to its remote location
- No major hospital nearby
- 50 ambulances dispatched from Karachi
- Emergency declared in Karachi hospitals
The explosion took place at the spot where the dhamaal (Sufi ritual) was being performed, within the premises of the shrine.
“At the time of the blast, there were at least 500 people gathered at the spot to view the performance,” said Abdul Hakim Lasi, a senior Edhi official in Khuzdar district.
Security forces reached the spot of the incident and established a cordon around it. Emergency services faced difficulty in reaching the site of the bombing due to its remote location and poor communication infrastructure.
The shrine is also located in hilly terrain, which further added to the difficulties faced by emergency services.
A control room was also established in Quetta to coordinate rescue efforts.
Army teams dispatched
On orders from the Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, army troops and medical teams were dispatched to the Shah Norani shrine to provide medical and rescue services to the injured, said a tweet from the Inter-Services Public relations.
Army medical teams treated the wounded at the location.
Lack of medical facilities
Two platoons of the Frontier Corps reached the shrine with medical and rescue equipment and were one of the first teams to initiate rescue operations.
No major hospital is located near the shrine, reportedly the injured were being shifted in private vehicles.
An emergency was also declared in hospitals of Khuzdar and Karachi. The only hospital in the district is Civil Hospital Khuzdar, which was not equipped to handle the scope of the emergency.
On instructions of Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, around 50 ambulances were dispatched from Karachi to the Shah Norani shrine. He also condemned the attack and expressed grief over the lives lost.
The injured began to arrive in Karachi hospitals hours after the bombing took place.
President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the bombing in separate statements.
Following the attack on the Shah Norani shrine, security was tightened across major Sufi shrines in the country.
The shrine is frequented by a large number of devotees on Friday and is visited by people from across the country. Iranian nationals also frequent the shrine. It is approximately 150 kilometres from Karachi.
IS claim responsibility
Pakistan Army spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said troops and medical teams had been dispatched but that “difficult terrain and long distance” were hampering their progress.
Bajwa said that 20 ambulances and 50 soldiers were about to reach the site, while a further 45 ambulances 100 troops were also on their way, along with medical teams.
A military helicopter would attempt evacuations at night, he added, but medical teams could not access the area by plane as their were no air strips close by.
President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the bombing in separate statements.
“The government is determined to eliminate terrorism and extremists from the country,” Hussain said in a statement expressing sympathy with the victims and their families.
A statement from Sharif’s office said the prime minister called for the “best medical treatment” to be given to the wounded.
Up to 600 people were at the shrine at the time of the attack, according to local official Tariq Mengal, who said that many devotees travelled to the site from Karachi during weekends.
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack via Amaq, its affiliated news agency.
“35 dead and 95 wounded Shiite visitors in a martyrdom operation attack by the Islamic State fighter that targeted a shrine in a city in Balochistan,” the agency said.
The bombing follows the killing of Amjad Sabri, a renowned Sufi singer, by two gunmen in Karachi in June.
Some observers have said that Sabri may have been assassinated because he was a high-profile Sufi.
Sufism, a mystic Islamic order that believes in living saints, worships through music, and is viewed as heretical by some hardline groups including the Taliban.
Local militants claimed to have worked with the Islamic State group to attack a police academy in Balochistan last month, killing 61 people in the deadliest assault on a security installation in Pakistan’s history.
In August, a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital claimed by the Islamic State group and a faction of the Pakistani Taliban killed 73 people.
Balochistan has been experiencing incidents of violence and targeted killings for over a decade. More than 1,400 incidents targeting the minority Shia and Hazara community have taken place in the province during the past 15 years.
Value your citizens. The people are innocent, emotional and "Olyaa-E-Allah" loving but the law is not emotional, blind. We must ban all public festivals unless proper security is provided. It's highly risky for poor people and after effects after any such person's death.
It's the duty of the state to protect the lives of innocent people and at the same highly impossible to provide security to all such places. Therefore selective and the most popular at national "Maqbras" should be provided security and all small shrines must have ceremonial "urs" .
It will go on like that Janmjua for the simple reason that it is a very sentimental issue besides highly controversial.
These shrines and mosques have budgets exceeding millions but they spend zero on security and prevent Govt. from proving security because these mullahs are corrupt and devoid of shame.
Not a single mosque in PK has security arrangements. They leave it on God. For beautification they can spend millions.
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