Relatives on Wednesday began burying the dead from a suspected suicide bombing at a religious gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi as the death toll rose to at least 57.
Provincial spokesperson Sallahuddin Haider confirmed the casualty figure and said some people were still missing from Tuesday’s attack, whose motive and perpetrators remained unknown.
”Our initial investigations point to at least two suicide bombers involved in the attack,” Haider told reporters. ”We have found the heads and other body parts probably of the suspected attackers.”
The atmosphere in the port city remained tense the day after the bombing targeting Sunni Muslim worshippers who were celebrating the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad.
Police and paramilitary forces were put on high alert after the blast blew up dozens of people — including top leaders of a religious organisation, Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat (JAS), which organised the gathering — and left more than a hundred people injured, including several journalists covering the event.
Four people were buried on Wednesday as the relatives of other victims prepared more funerals. The provincial government announced three days of mourning and
closed all educational institutions. It also advised food outlets of foreign-based firms such as KFC and McDonald’s to close to avoid attacks by protestors.
The Karachi Stock Exchange was also closed and businesses were also likely to be affected by the large number of funerals that are taking place in different parts of the city of 14-million people.
The provincial government has also asked the army stationed in the city to be ready to deploy troops at short notice, military officials said.
Soon after the attack, families crowded hospitals were the bodies and wounded from the attack were brought, frantically searching for their loved ones.
Angry mobs, mostly made up of JAS followers, went on the rampage and torched two gas stations on a busy Karachi road.
President Pervez Musharraf ordered an immediate inquiry into what he called a dastardly act of terrorism.
”This is the worst incident of terrorism in the country’s history, which was committed by elements inimical to Pakistan and Muslims,” he said.
Incidents of sectarian violence and suicide bombings have been on the increase in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan since January 2002 when Musharraf banned at least six sectarian and militant outfits as part of his government’s policy to curb militancy and extremism.
In March 2004, at least 50 people were killed during a bombing on a religious procession of Shia Muslims in Quetta, capital of southwestern Balochistan province.
Nearly 70 people fell victim to suicide bombings at two Shia mosques in Karachi in May 2004.
More than 100 people were killed in October in the same year in two suicide attacks on a Shia mosque in Sialkot and a gathering of Sunni Muslims in Multan, both cities in central Punjab province.
In Tuesday’s attack, four JAS leaders — Haji Hanif Khan Billu, Hafiz Muhammad Taqi, Iftikhar Bhatti and Maulana Abbas Qadri — were among those killed.
The chief organiser of the gathering, Maulana Shah Tarab-ul-Haq, escaped the blast, which occurred in the second row in front of a stage.
Qazi Hussein Ahmad, chief of the six-party Islamic opposition alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, condemned the attack and said it was the handiwork of anti-Islamic forces.
He also took a swipe at the government for its failure to protect the lives of citizens and said instead of unearthing the ”real conspirators, they [the government] always try to dub such incidents as suicide attacks”.
This was the second major deadly incident in Karachi in the past three days. At least 30 women and children were killed and nearly 50 wounded on Sunday in a stampede at a religious assembly also held to mark the anniversary of Muhammad’s birth. – Sapa-DPA