Country mourns as toll from Taliban attack in Lahore climbs to 15

LAHORE: Pakistanis on Tuesday mourned the victims of a Taliban-claimed suicide bomb in Lahore, as the death toll rose to 15 and the city’s residents railed at the government for failing to protect them.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had declared Tuesday as a day of mourning after Monday’s blast on Lahore’s Mall Road, one of the city’s main arteries, during a busy protest.

At least 15 people were killed, emergency official Ahmad Raza told a foreign news agency, including six police officers, while up to 100 were injured. The toll could have been much higher, Raza said, but for two vehicles – a TV news van and a minivan belonging to the protesters – which absorbed much of the impact of the blast.

A faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamaatul Ahrar, claimed the responsibility for the assault, which came three days after it announced it would carry out a series of attacks on government installations around the country. A spokesperson for the group warned in a statement that Monday’s bomb was “just the start”.

The attack underscored the challenges faced by Pakistan in its push to stamp out militancy, even as security dramatically improved in 2015 and 2016.

Lahore residents vented their fury at the militants and the government at the blast site early on Tuesday. “They (the militants) have no link with Islam nor do they believe in any religion, the only thing they know is killing people, this is utterly an act of terrorism,” said Tariq Saleem.

Nadeem Akhter called on the government to do more to bring the situation under control. “Our children and people are being killed in these attacks,” he said.

Both British High Commissioner to Pakistan Thomas Drew and US ambassador David Hale branded the attack ‘cowardly’ in separate statements, expressing support for the victims.

Lahore, the country’s cultural capital, suffered one of Pakistan’s deadliest attacks during 2016 – a Jamaatul Ahrar suicide bomb in a park last Easter that killed more than 70, including many children.

But such incidents have been rare in the city in recent years.

Shortly after Monday’s attack, two members of a bomb disposal team were killed in Quetta while trying to defuse a device. It was not clear if the Quetta bomb was linked to the Lahore attack.