Lahore mourns triple bombing, tool rises

Pakistani Shiite Muslim mourners carry the coffins of bomb victims at their funeral a day after suicide attacks on a religious procession in Lahore yesterday

The death toll from suicide attacks that targeted a busy procession in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore rose to 31 yesterday as six people succumbed to their injuries, officials said.
Three suicide bombers targeted a Shiite mourning procession made up of thousands of people on Wednesday at the moment of the breaking of the fast in the holy month of Ramadan, wounding hundreds.
It was the first major attack in Pakistan since devastating floods engulfed a fifth of the volatile country over the past month in its worst disaster yet.
“Thirty-one people have died and a total of 281 were injured,” Fahim Jehanzeb, a spokesman for Lahore’s rescue agency told AFP, adding that he feared more would die from their injuries.
Sajjad Bhutta, a senior local administration official, confirmed the new death toll.
Head of police investigations for Lahore, Zulfiqar Hamid, told AFP that investigations were ongoing and no arrest had yet been made.
Prayers were held for seven of the dead yesterday, with police and paramilitary providing tight security, while local authorities announced a day of mourning with all public and private institutions closed.
Later hundreds of Shiite Muslims clad in black took to the streets to denounce the attack and said they would later hold a meeting to discuss a strategy in response.
“We strongly condemn this incident. We will not tolerate such attack in future,” a Shiite leader, Hassan Zafar Naqvi, told AFP.
An AFP reporter said that all markets were closed and roads were quiet on yesterday, after the attacks provoked an outpouring of fury in the city a night earlier, with mourners trying to torch a nearby police station.
Police fired tear gas to force back the surging crowd as furious mourners beat the bodies of the suicide bombers with sticks and shoes, while others beat their own heads and chests at the site of the attacks in frustration.
The emotional crowd chanted slogans against the police and the provincial government over their failure to protect the Shiite procession, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.
Lahore, a city of eight million near Pakistan’s border with India, has been increasingly subject to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,600 people in three years.
The procession hit by the blasts was being held to mark the anniversary of the martyrdom of Hazarat Ali, who is revered by Shia Muslims and is the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed.
Shiites account for around 20 percent of Pakistan’s mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.
Yesterday a militant gun attack in a former Taliban stronghold in the northwest killed one female teacher and wounded two of her colleagues, officials said.
The victims – all women – were hit as they returned home on foot from their school in Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal district, which was a stronghold of Taliban militants opposed to the education of girls, until an army crackdown in 2008.