61 Shias dead in Shikarpur imambargah bombing

• TTP faction Jundullah claims responsibility for attack on Shia place of worship
• Shia outfits announce three days of mourning as govt leaders condemn incident

At least 61 people were killed and dozens others injured in an explosion inside a central imambargah in Sindh province’s Shikarpur district on Friday.

Civil Hospital Shikarpur issued a list of 55 victims out of whom 46 bodies had been identified whereas the identity of 3 others was yet to be confirmed.

Jundullah, a splinter group of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which last year pledged support for the Islamic State group based in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“Our target was the Shia mosque … They are our enemies,” said Fahad Marwat, a Jundullah spokesman.

The Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) announced to observe a ‘peaceful strike’ across Sindh in the wake of the terrorist attack.

Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah announced a day of mourning for the victims of the blast in Shikarpur.

The imambargah is located in Shikarpur’s Lakhi Dar area and the explosion occurred just after Friday prayers.

A number of victims were trapped under debris after the roof of the imambargah collapsed due to the intensity of the blast. Many of the casualties were shifted to hospitals in Sukkur and Larkana districts of Sindh.

MWM central leader Allama Mohammed Amin Shaheedi announced three days mourning, describing the incident a failure of the government.

The Jafria Disaster Cell (JDC) demanded that the critically wounded victims be immediately shifted to Karachi for treatment.

Local resident Mohammad Jehangir said that he had “felt the earth move beneath my feet” as he prayed at another mosque around 1.5 kilometres away.

An official with a national Shia organisation, Rahat Kazmi, said that up to 400 people were worshiping in the mosque when the blast struck.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, President Mamnoon Hussain, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan and Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain issued condemnation messages against the incident.

Speculation prevails that the explosion may have been carried out by a suicide bomber.

The incident comes as Pakistan is attempting to implement the National Action Plan to combat and root out terrorism from the country, an initiative that was set in motion after the Dec 16 attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School in December 2014.

It was the second major attack on an imambargah in the country since the beginning of 2015; the first being an attack on Rawalpindi’s Imambargah Aun Mohammad Rizvi in the garrison city’s Chatian Hatian area.

At the same time, Pakistani security forces are engaged in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal regions — with the operation in Waziristan starting soon after a terrorist attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport and the theater of war expanding into Khyber.